


A Caged Songbird

by bikadoo_2



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Dragons, F/M, Motherhood, Queen Sansa, R plus L equals J, Sexual Content, The Prince That Was Promised, What if Sansa DID marry Joffrey?
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-03-26
Updated: 2017-06-22
Packaged: 2018-10-11 00:38:01
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 18
Words: 88,403
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10451103
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bikadoo_2/pseuds/bikadoo_2
Summary: “I will be a silent, and dutiful wife,” Sansa spits. “I will be their pretty little songbird, and wear their ugly crown, and sit on their painful throne. I shall give him a babe, and my love, and I will wait until he thinks that he has won. And then I shall take his life."Shae goes still. "You ... you plan to kill the King?""No," Sansa says. "I plan to kill my husband."





	1. Fire and Blood and Ice

**Author's Note:**

> ... yes i am writing ANOTHER fic. lord knows I need to stop.

 

“ _Run.”_

Her legs ache as she runs, the cold of the Winter air striking her skin as she sprints past the open galleys. She can hear the screams outside, but she knows she cannot bear to look from any of the windows. She cannot think of what is happening beyond the Red Keep – for to think of the horrors of the outside was to stop and she cannot stop.

The sword is heavy in her hands, but she knows she cannot let it slip from her fingers. _Ice, keep me strong,_ she tells it, as the blood from the blade drips on the floor. She cannot think of the name her husband named it. She cannot think of that. All she can think of is Ice, and her father. _Keep me strong, Father._

Maegors Holdfast seems so vast now, and yet Sansa Stark knows the truth. She has walked these halls a thousand times over, and she knows how quickly she can reach her. _Just get to her room,_ she tells herself. _Get to her room. Get to her room. Get to her room._

When she sees the door to the Princess’ chambers, Sansa nearly cries. She slams open the familiar door, and looks for her.

“Joanna!” Sansa screams, panicked. “Joanna!” 

“Mama!”

Her daughter, and her Septa are huddled in the corner with the ladies’ maids instructed for her care. Sansa can see her babe, only two years of age, struggling to get out of Septa’s arms. The unruly dark hair seems so large now, and Sansa cannot help but be relieved at the sight of it. _My girl, my babe._

 _“_ Gods, your grace!”

 Sansa knows what they can see. They see their Queen, crown and all, coated in blood. They must assume it is hers, for it is safer that way. _They cannot know what I have done._  Sansa can see their watchful gazes, and their fear, but she cannot worry for any of them now. She strides over to them, before she plucks her daughter from the arms of the Septa.

“Your grace-“

“I am taking the Princess,” Sansa instructs, her voice cold. Her eyes sweep over the women – the women instructed to keep a watchful eye over Sansa’s babe by Cersei Lannister – and she knows she cannot leave them there. _I am the Queen, and these are my people._ “You must leave. All of you – find a safe place within the Keep, or on the streets outside.”

“But your grace-“

“Where shall we go?”

Sansa tightens her hold on her daughter, who has buried her face in her mothers neck. “Stay in Maegors. That is the safest place. But you must surrender when the Keep is taken.” 

“Your Grace?” Septa Crane asks, her eyes wide with worry. “Surely this cannot be happening. The King will protect us – the Gods will protect us.”

Sansa turns from them, inhaling her daughters scent as she says, “Your King is dead. He can’t protect you now.”

Sansa takes to the Halls again, but she knows she cannot go to her chambers. Joanna lifts her head as Sansa stops to take a breath, her heart hammering in her chest as she tries to comprehend what she has done.

“Mama?” Joanna asks, her wide, blue eyes staring at her. “Mama?”

“It is okay, my sweet,” Sansa murmurs, pressing a kiss to her daughter’s head. “Mama just needs a moment to think.” 

“What’s happening?” She asks, her eyes worried. 

Sansa’s breath fractures, and she can feel the sob lodging itself in her throat. Sansa smoothes her daughter’s curls, and presses a kiss to her temple. “Good people are coming into the city. We must be brave. Can you be brave for me, my darling?”

Joanna looks to her, with wide eyes and an inquisitive smile, and nods. “Yes, Mama. I can be brave.”

“Thank you,” Sansa whispers, before she gathers her skirts in her hands and begins to run. She knows where she must go, but her heart is screaming for her to run far from here. She can hear Tyrion's words in her mind, urging her to hide within the Capital and let them take the Keep. It is just as clear as it was that day in her solar, and Sansa wonders if Tyrion is still alive.  _I could take Joanna, and run. I could return North._

But she knows she cannot.

The Great Hall is empty, and Sansa cannot help but feel intimidated by the sight of it. _Do not fear it,_ she tells herself, _you are the Queen, and this is your Hall._

Joanna wiggles in her arms, and motions to be dropped down. Sansa places her on the floor, and she begins to run, on unsteady legs, to the throne, as she has done so many times prior. 

Sansa can hear the battle beyond the walls, but she cannot bring herself to focus on it. So she lifts her skirts, and drags the sword on the floor as she climbs the steps to the throne and seats herself down, placing the sword next to it and lifting her daughter onto her lap.

Sansa can feel the tears on her cheeks, but she cannot bear to push them from her face. Joanna watches them with a curiosity, and Sansa knows this is the first time she has seen her mother cry. Sansa cannot watch her daughter any longer, for she knows if she continues to stare into her mother’s eyes, she will become distraught. 

They are quiet for a while, with only the sound of the battle that was beyond the walls meeting their ears. Sansa focuses on the even breaths of her daughter as she begins to fall asleep – the sight of her little body, wrapped in her white night clothes, allowing her one peace.

It is hours, before they come.

She hears them before she sees them.

Sansa stands, grabbing what was Ice as she holds Joanna against her – her body limp as she sleeps.

_Be brave. Be brave._

Sansa holds her father’s sword in front of her, ready to surrender, when her mind is invaded by intrusive thoughts. _Will they call you Elia,_ she thinks, _when they remember you?_ Suddenly Sansa is grasped by the memory of her father telling her of Elia Martell, who had been murdered and raped and her children slaughtered. 

Sansa goes to move, when the doors to the Great Hall are pushed open and stop her in her steps.

They come in a crowd, led by a small woman with white hair and two men. It is victory, upon which they travel - Sansa can almost see the euphoric cloud following them as they enter the room upon which they have fought so hard to claim. They are intimidating, and vast, and Sansa wishes to run far from them - far from the Capital and far from the battle. But she knows she cannot, not when they are in front of her and would string her from wall to wall if she was to do as she so wished. Sansa trembles as she holds her sword out, tears trailing down her cheeks as they continue forward. _Be brave,_ her father murmurs,  _be brave, Sansa._

Sansa can feel Joanna wake, turning her head against Sansa’s shoulder.

“Be still, my love,” Sansa whispers, trying to keep her voice steady.

“Mama?” Her daughter asks, her voice groggy with sleep.

“Mama’s here, my wolf,” Sansa says, holding her tighter. “Mama’s here.”

They continue to walk forward, and all Sansa can think of is Elia Martell. _Not my daughter,_ she prays, _not my daughter. Not my daughter. Do not let Tyrion be right. Do not let them kill my girl._ Sansa knows that the white-haired woman is the Queen of the East – Daenerys Targaryen. But the other two that flank her are mysteries, two far from her sight and too dark that she cannot identify.

 _Be brave,_ she tells herself, _be brave._

“My name is Sansa of House Baratheon,” Sansa says, summoning as much bravery as she can. She thinks of her father, who had faced the crowd on the steps of the Sept of Baelor. She thinks of her sister, who would launch herself into any battle if so called. She thinks of her mother, who birthed babe after babe with fear far from her mind. She thinks of her poor brothers, and knows that she can be brave. _I am what they could not be,_ she thinks,  _and I shall be brave for them._  “I am wife to King Joffrey Baratheon, and mother to the Princess of Dragonstone. And I am surrendering the city, and Westeros, to you, Daenerys Stormborn.”

The man on the left halts as she speaks, completely stopping.

“Queen Sansa,” The white-haired Queen says. “Where is your husband?”


	2. Little Caged Bird

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sansa marries Joffrey. Nightmares ensue. Will update tomorrow because big time skip means badass Sansa and yass i want that.

“Tell me the story of Ashara Dayne,” Sansa Stark had asked of her Septa one day, gazing out at the fields beyond Winterfells walls. 

“Lady Ashara Dayne was the only daughter of the Lord of Starfall, and his Lady. She was a maiden of great beauty, and of great wit, I hear,” Septa Mordane had said. “She was one of the few that still retained Valyrian eyes, but then it was not so strange to have them.”

“Because the Targaryen’s had them,” Arya had supplied.

Septa Mordane had nodded, impressed at Arya’s attention. “Yes, Lady Arya. When Ashara Dayne lived, so did the Targaryens. She was said to be the greatest beauty in the land, but she was not a proud woman, or so that is what I was told. It was said that for all the attention Lady Ashara procured, she was but a quiet lady.”

“But then she threw herself off a cliff,” Arya had shouted, happy to know her history. 

“Arya,” Sansa had hissed, jabbing her fingers into her sisters ribs. 

“Yes.” Septa Mordane had become morose, distain on her features. “Yes, Lady Arya, Ashara Dayne threw herself from a cliff.”

“Why?”

Sansa had been puzzled. To do such a thing was a sin. Sansa couldn't understand it, not yet, at least. 

“I do not know,” Septa Mordane admitted, before her eyes became sad. “But maybe the pain of death was not as painful as the pain of her life.”

Sansa had blinked, stunned at Septa Mordane’s words.

“I don’t understand.” 

Septa Mordane had smiled. “And I hope you never will, Lady Sansa.”

 

* * *

  

They say the vows, and it is done.

She is a Baratheon.

And the Queen.

She has been forced into a beautiful gown – made of whites, greys, and silvers, and yet Sansa feels as if the gown could have been black. She is still in mourning, after all. It had been but a year since her betrothed had executed her father. Her mother by law has forced her to attend fittings, and meetings, to view singers and to attend viewings.  _It is your wedding, little dove,_ the Queen sings,  _and you shall only have one._

Cersei Lannister takes joy in seeing Sansa struggle with her discomfort. She smiles, and offers kind words, but they are nothing but poisonous lies – Sansa can see that, now. Every time Sansa allows herself to think back to the last time she trusted the Queen, she finds herself drowning in an ocean of guilt.

Sansa Stark knows how men bleed.

The first time she had seen it, it had been on the steps of the Great Sept of Baelor.

Sansa had been but a girl, whose mind knew nothing but gowns and golden haired babes, only for the scarlet river to wash it all away. She had watched as the black hooded reaper took the sword of her family – the sword of her father – and rob him of his head. She could remember watching as the blade hovered before the nape of his neck, before it came down. Traitor, they called him. Traitor, he died as. Sansa wishes to retch at the thought of it. 

She cannot recall what she had been expecting, but when Sansa thinks of death, she had not imagined it to be the thing she saw that day, on those grand steps. _A man shouldn’t bleed that much,_ she recalls thinking, before the darkness took her and she fell onto herself.

The second time, it was her own skin.

Beneath the snowy flesh, a river of red rests, and as she had watched it fall onto the floor at the feet of the Iron Throne, she had wondered if the sight of her own blood would be the last sight her eyes would behold. 

But it is not her last sight.

She has lived, to see more blood.

It is a very peculiar thing, to see yourself bleed. Before Kings Landing, blood was seen at the prick of a finger on a needle, not on the blade of a great sword. Her betrothed enjoys the sight of her blood, but Sansa has been grateful that it was simply blood from her arms, and not her neck. 

Every day she hadn’t bled had been a god send. The day she had woken to a pool of blood between her legs had been the day that Sansa Stark had truly died. She needn't be paraded on the steps of the Sept of Baelor like her father; no, her death came with her moon blood. For all that she had once wished for the wedding of a Queen to a gallant and handsome King, she now wishes for nothing but death.

Their wedding is an elaborate farce. 

She is paraded through the streets, in a golden litter, in a gown of white and a crown of rubies. Joffrey had presented it to her the night prior. _It is a crown of your blood,_ he had taunted, before his mother had reprimanded him and had simply said that the crown was a fine Lannister heirloom. 

Sansa had wanted to rip it from scalp, and throw it into the ocean. 

She can hear the people, cheering and blessing her with wishes of good will.

And she wonders if they know what they are wishing for her. 

The Great Sept of Baelor is just how she remembers it, and as she is escorted from her litter, her eyes go to the steps and her heart contracts. No male member of her House guides her – instead, Lord Tywin is waiting for her at the entrance to the Sept. Beside him, like a mirage, is her father – his face grey, and sad. 

Sansa halts in her steps, her eyes wide and her breath being robbed from her lips. _Papa,_ she goes to say, before she blinks and he is gone. _I am seeing ghosts,_ she thinks, blinking away her tears. 

 _Just breathe,_ Sansa thinks to herself, _just breathe. You are Sansa, of House Stark, and wolves do not kneel._

“Lady Stark,” Lord Tywin said, a smile on his lips. “You look … presentable.”

Sansa does not wilt.

When she is presented to the King, his eyes rake over her hungrily, but there are no lack of courtesies. _Joffrey is anything but kind_ , Sansa thinks as he calls her beautiful and presses a kiss to her hand, _but he wants people to believe it_.

When he removes her cloak of wolves, and replaces it with one of stags, and lions, she knows she is crying. Sansa wipes it away quickly, for she cannot allow Joffrey to see her weeping. _No longer a wolf. No longer a Stark._  

When it is done, the King does as he always has; he takes what he wants.

It is not her first kiss, but it is cold. 

When Joffrey toasts her, he is drunk. His chivalry has worn off, and so comes his vitriolic vileness, like acid. He pulls her up by the waist, and presses his fingers into her ribs, and whispers, “Now I can fuck you honourably.” 

When the King announces the bedding, it is he that begins ripping at her clothes. Her new husband doesn’t care for her wedding gown – instead he rips it from her body and it falls to the floor, destroyed.

Lords come for her then, their hands cold as they pinch at her skin and rip her shift from her body. As Sansa is palmed, and prodded, groped and gouded, she looks away, her tears blurring her eyes as she is carried from the banquet hall. She opens her eyes, and through her tears, she can see him; her father, once more. _Papa,_ she wishes to cry, as she had nearly done this morning, but she knows better. _Your mind is playing tricks on you,_ she tells herself, _Eddard Stark is dead._  

All Sansa can think of as he climbs on top of her is how sad it is for such a beautiful dress to be destroyed. He doesn’t care for her cries, or her pleas for mercy; in fact, it seemed that whenever she cries out, Joffrey Baratheon is spurred on. _He likes it,_ she thinks. _He likes hearing me cry._

He doesn't stop until sun dawns through the window. 

“There,” Joffrey growls, throwing her body to the bed like a discarded doll. 

Sansa watches as he leaves, blinking away her tears before her eyes move to the windows. Outside lay a large balcony, overlooking the sea. 

 _Ashara Dayne had jumped into the sea,_ she thinks, before she succumbs to sleep.

“Your grace,” They call her, as they flock in groups and ask for audiences. 

Being Queen is different, but she should have known. Stupidly, Sansa thought that she would still be seen as the daughter of a traitor when now, the court viewed her as the ear of the King. _I have his ear like I have a dragon,_ Sansa thinks, as Cersei instructs her on which ladies she will be permitted to ask for their attendance.

They are ladies from the Westerlands, the Reach, and the Crownlands.

Sansa had been holding a small hope that mayhaps a Northern lady, or at the very least a Lady of the Riverlands, would be asked to attend her. And yet as the Queen Dowager introduced her new ladies, Sansa knew that she would have none to trust. _They are ears for the Lannister’s,_ she thinks, as Shae brushes her hair, _and I can’t trust any of them._

Joffrey visits her every night. The first month she screams, and cries, pleading for him to stop. And every time he finishes, he rolls off her and leaves without a sound. After the first month, Sansa learns to be quiet.  Every time he enters her chambers, and forces himself on her, she lies silently and allows her husbands to take his rights. She had thought, maybe, if she was quiet, he would grow tired of her.

She’s wrong. 

Her screams can be heard from the other side of the Red Keep, she had been told. Shae need only look at her in the way that every other courtier does for Sansa Baratheon to know that the court knew exactly what their King did to their Queen. _Do any of you really care,_ she thinks as she sits beside her husband and tries to cover the bruises on her alabaster skin, _do any of you even see me?_

“These silks will help,” The Dowager Queen says one afternoon, when they are dining in Sansa’s solar. 

“With what?” Sansa asks dumbly, looking at the coloured silk in confusion. 

“With covering the bruises, little dove,” Cersei says, smiling in that way that she does. It makes Sansa’s stomach churn, to see such a beauty on a woman with such evil within her. _The Gods are cruel,_ she thought, _to make evil look so beautiful._ “When my husband, the brute he was, took his fist to my face, I need only drape a silk over my hair and the court would not stare.”

Sansa narrows her eyes at the Queen. “But I seem to remember you would always show off the bruises King Robert gave to you, my lady.”

Cersei chuckles and wraps her hand around Sansa’s. “Take the silks, little dove. You do not do well with eyes on you.”

Cersei Lannister is a lioness, in every sense. Cersei does not do well to having her crown taken from her head, and so she has not surrendered the Queens chambers nor has surrendered the royal jewels. Sansa does not care, though; her room has a view of the ocean, whereas the Queen stares at Kings Landing – a sight Sansa couldn’t bear to stomach whilst her husband was on top of her. 

Cersei Lannister is a storm; a hurricane of envy and pride that Sansa cannot get caught in. Every kind word, every gift, was another way that Cersei would attempt to manipulate her – to steer her into speaking her words, advocate for her causes, argue her points. But Sansa was not the little dove she had once been; she is not naïve enough to think that Cersei values her, or that she is not dangerous.

Cersei is like them all: cunning, violent, and cruel.

She does not even know why Cersei tries for Sansa has no influence over the King. Joffrey Lannister responds to her words like a rock to wind – he cares not for her opinion, or her voice in his ear. In fact, the last time she had given her opinion on a matter, he had broken her rib.

The day she discovers she is with child, Sansa is told her brother and mother have been slaughtered.

“I am very sorry for your loss, your grace.”

It is the imp, that tells her.

“Why didn’t my husband tell me?” She weeps, her voice a croak of her sorrow.  

“Because I did not think it right to let my nephew tell you,” Lord Tyrion says, before he winces. “Not … not this.”

They have not spoken much, herself and Lord Tyrion, and yet from that moment, her Uncle-by-law becomes a quiet confidante. Mayhap it is due to their alienation, or maybe even their shared familial hatred, but Sansa finds herself asking for the former Hand of the Kings company more than any other courtier.

“They will say we are having an affair, my lady,” Tyrion says one day, when they are walking the gardens.

Sansa laughs, freely and without worry. It is the first time in a long time. “Maybe. My husband would kill us both, I fear.” 

“I think you shall be safe, your grace,” Tyrion says, before he motioned to her protruding belly, “at least for four more moons.”

Sansa laughs again, before her laughter sobers and she looks over her shoulder to the ladies-in-waiting that trail behind them. “We should not joke about such matters, Uncle.” 

“No, I suppose not.”

They are silent for a moment, before they round the apple tree. “The King believes the babe I’m carrying is a boy.”

“Let’s hope the little one comes out with a cock,” Tyrion says. “It would appease the King for a little while, I would hope.”

The babe stirs within her. “What if it is not a boy?”

“Then it is not a boy,” Tyrion says with a shrug. “If it is not a dwarf, the House of Lannister shall be thrilled.”

His words do nothing to quell her unease.

Tyrion glances back at her, and sighs at the hesitation on her face. “He may be displeased, but I do not believe my father would allow a Lannister to be killed.” 

“The baby will be a Baratheon,” Sansa says, a wry smile coating her features. She cannot help but laugh then, for it is so ridiculous that she had to question such a thing. Tyrion joins in on her laughter, and she knows they must look mad to the courtiers that the Dowager Queen had instructed into Sansa’s service.  _Call me mad,_ she wishes to scream,  _I am._

“Yes.” Tyrion laughs. “Yes it will.” 

For all that he has been cruel to her, with his babe in her belly Joffrey is nothing but distant. At first she finds it odd, when the man whose rough force she is so used to is no longer visiting her rooms, or insulting her over the table. Instead, when she attends court at his side, he has restraint.

It is when her belly begins to show that he begins to stare at her. It is not how Joffrey usually looks at her, but there is something within his eyes – a curiosity that she feels unnerved by. Some days he will not pay her any attention – instead he will give charming smiles to her ladies, and will ask them of their marriage prospects whilst other times, he will stay by her side, too closely.

She is walking with Lady Grey when her husband calls her name.

Sansa turns, surprised at the sound of Joffrey’s voice before she dips into a small cursty. “Your grace.”

“I have been looking for you,” Joffrey says, his eyes going to Lady Grey. “Lady Grey, you may go.”

Sansa’s companion wastes no time in fleeing, and Sansa feels sorry for her. _Poor thing probably thinks she will lose her head,_ Sansa thinks, before she turns her attention back to Joffrey.

“May I help you, your grace?”

Joffrey’s smile is strained as he says, “No. I simply wished to walk with you. Can I not walk with my own wife?”

His hand becomes a claw on Sansa’s forearm with every word, and so she smiles, as she always does, and nods her head. “Of course, my love. Where would you like to walk?” 

“Where were you headed?” He asks bluntly, and Sansa can feel her heart begin to hammer against her chest.

“To the gardens.”

“Then we shall go to the gardens.”

The walk is near silent, other than the gossip of passing courtiers. Sansa knows what they see; the young King and Queen, walking arm in arm. But of course, they all know there is no love in this match – they have probably been privy to the sound of her screams. _I am alone in this place._

“I do not remember my mother being with child,” Joffrey admits, breaking the silence. 

Sansa turns to him, surprised. “Not even with Prince Tommen, my love?”

“No.” Joffrey shakes his head. “My father never cared for it, so why should I?” Sansa bites the inside of her mouth, and thinks, _I hate you. I hate you. I hate you._ Joffrey continues. “Does it … does it feel rather strange?”

Sansa cannot hold in her surprise then. Joffrey looks genuinely interested – far more interested than she has ever seen in him, save for watching someone die. 

“Yes, very.” Sansa laughs, unsure of what else to do. Joffrey watches her with keen interest, and Sansa cannot stop herself then, her words tumbling from her lips in a panicked, confused rumble, “I suppose it feels like a stranger has taken over my body. It kicks, sometimes, and moves so much.”

“He kicks you?” Joffrey asks, something flashing on his face. _Satisfaction, probably,_ she thinks. 

“Yes,” Sansa says. “Quite a lot, actually.”

Joffrey stares off into the distance, before he nods. “He shall be strong, then.”

_What if it’s a girl?_

“If the Gods will it,” Sansa says, placing a hand over her belly.

Joffrey turns on her then, his eyes narrowing. “You don’t think our son shall be strong?” 

“No-“ 

“He is a _Baratheon_ ,” Joffrey spits, stepping forward and grabbing her forearms. _My, how quickly the storm changes,_ she thinks, her stomach churning. “We defeated the dragons and won the war – our strength is unrivalled." 

“Robert Baratheon won the war,” Sansa snaps, pulling her arms from the Kings. _I hate you,_ she wishes to scream.  _I **hate** you._ “You have won _nothing.”_

His hand comes out, and strikes her.

The slap to her face is made worse by the wedding ring he wears – a giant ruby that digs itself into her cheek and takes her flesh away. It is a sharp, stinging feeling as blood gushes from her cheek, and down her chest; spoiling the lilac gown she wore. _Such a pity,_ she thinks, as she stumbles, her hand coming to her stomach as she begins to fall.

The ground is hard, and Sansa lets out a cry as she hits it. Her hands grate against the gravel, and she bites her lip, tasting blood as she tries not to cry again. Sansa pushes herself up, blinking towards where her husband stood over her, leering and domineering. _Will he kill me,_ she wonders, _will he actually kill me?_

She can already hear the whispers of the courtiers that surround them.

Her husband leans down, kneeling beside her as he grabs her arm. His lips come to her ear as he hisses, “If you ever raise your voice again, I will kill you as I killed your traitor father. And I will let my soldiers rape you before-“   

“Your Grace.”

For a moment, she thinks it is her father. For a brief moment of confusion, the blurred figure that stands over her is Eddard Stark. She has not seen him since the day of her wedding – when the mirage of his ghost had taunted her, with a sad face and scarred neck. Sansa knows it is not him, but for a moment, she allows herself to believe it. She allows herself to believe her father is fine, and well, and that she is not the Queen.

But the moment passes, and goes, and he is gone.

Sansa scrambles from Joffrey’s’ grasp, to see Tywin Lannister standing before them. He is flanked by his guards; ten of them actually. His face is pinched in displeasure, and Sansa can see the anger in his shoulders.

“This is not a matter for you, Grandfather." 

Tywin steps forward, and grabs the King by the shoulder. “Your wife is heavy with child, your grace. If she falls, it can hurt the babe.”

Joffrey opens his mouth to respond, before his Hand leans forward and hisses, “Do you want the court to know you hit their Queen?”

“I do not care-“

“The people will,” Tywin barks. “And we cannot afford a riot because of _your_ stupidity.”

Joffrey’s face reddens, before he storms off. Sansa watches as her husband leaves, and can feel the blood leave her face as she realises that she is safe. It is Tywin that offers her his hand, and she takes it, standing on trembling legs. 

“Try not to say something to make him angry,” Tywin says, dryly. “Maybe then he wouldn’t’ hit you.”

Sansa is cold when she says, “I don’t say anything, and he still hits me. What shall I do then, my lord?”

Lord Tywin cocks a brow at her words, before his face folds in it’s usual distain. “Then be quieter.”

When Shae sees her, she gasps. “Your Grace!” 

Sansa does not say anything – not until later, when her gown has been stripped from her and she is soaking in a bath. 

“I will kill him,” She whispers, her eyes meeting Shae’s shocked ones. “I will fight them, and I will win.” 

“How?” Shae asks. 

“I will be a silent, and dutiful wife,” Sansa spits. “I will be their pretty little songbird, and wear their ugly crown, and sit on their painful throne. I shall give him a babe, and my love, and I will wait until he thinks that he has won. And then I shall take his life."

Shae goes still. "You ... plan to kill the King?"

"No," Sansa says. "I plan to kill my husband."

After that day, Sansa dreams of running wolves and flying hawks. She can feel the air beneath her as she flies, and the dirt beneath her feet as she runs. When she sinks her teeth into her first kill, she imagines green eyes and golden hair. When she wakes each morning, Sansa credits the odd dreams with the babe, but every night, they are the same – running, and flying, floating and killing. 

The night the babe comes, there is a storm crashing at the walls of Maegors Holdfast. 

The room is so dark that Sansa can see nothing but the light of the fire in the hearth. She has been in confinement for a moon, but this day feels different. The midwife is not a kind woman (she had been selected by the Dowager queen after all), and so she does nothing to soothe Sansa. 

So, Sansa is forced to soothe herself. Through all the pain, she imagines her mother by her side – whispering words of encouragement, as she had always promised to do when Sansa had had her first babe. She imagines the stone walls of Winterfell, and the warm pools. Sansa can still remember begging her mother after the birth of Rickon, to make sure that she would be there when Sansa was grown and a wife. And she had promised.

When Sansa hears the first cry of her babe, she cries out in relief. It is an insurmountable ocean of love that consumes her when she sees her child for the first time – bloody, and wailing, squirming in the arms of the midwife that has delivered her. Sansa does not wait to rip the babe from the midwifes hands – too afraid that she would bundle Sansa’s babe up and take her to the King.

“It is a girl, your grace.”

Sansa knows that she should be disappointed, for the King will not hide his anger at being presented a girl rather than a boy. Sansa cannot bring herself to care about her baby’s gender, or what the King will ever think; this is her babe, and her babe alone.

She cannot help but sob at the sight of her, as her daughter blinks her eyes open. Her sobs soften as Sansa grows used to holding her, and as Sansa watches her daughter open her eyes, she begs all the Gods in their grace to not bless her daughter with the eyes of a Lannister.

Her eyes are the clearest blue Sansa has ever seen, but they aren’t foreign. She has seen her daughter’s eyes on her mother, and siblings before her. _Tully blue,_ Sansa thinks. _My babe is not like them at all._ Her hair is an unruly black, and curls at the ends – long and full, she looks nothing like a lion and Sansa has never felt so thankful. 

Sansa waits, until her husband is with her, to name her babe. She knows he will not accept Catelyn, so she will not dare suggest it.

“A girl?” He asks, as he is handed her babe. As Sansa watches the King – the man who has caused her so much pain – hold her child, she has never been in so much pain. _Childbirth is nothing compared to the force of my husband._ Joffrey stares at their daughter for a long time, too long, and Sansa fears that he may throw her to the floor in anger. “She looks like … like my father.”

There is an air to Joffrey’s voice that Sansa has heard only once before – that day, in the gardens. It is wonder, or mayhaps a vindication. _He thinks this means he is legitimate,_ Sansa realises. It is good – enough to know that this validation of Joffrey’s legitimacy, if far-fetched, will protect her daughter from his anger.

“Yes,” Sansa says, clearing her throat as she tries to ignore her hammering heart. “Yes, your grace. She is every inch a Baratheon.” 

Joffrey chuckles, nodding as he sways Sansa’s babe from side to side. Her fingers twitch, the need to reach out and pluck her babe from his arms overwhelming and yet she knows she cannot not do so. He looks at Sansa then, and his eyes – his Lannister, awful eyes that she had once thought were so handsome – were soft.

“Joanna,” He says, smiling broadly. “She shall be Princess Joanna Baratheon, for my mother’s mother.”

Sansa’s heart sinks to the lowest part of her gut as she realises that thinking she would ever have a say on her daughter’s name was a thought of folly. _Of course, it would be a Lannister name – there was no other option._

“Beautiful, my love,” Sansa says, tired.   

“Yes,” He says. “Yes, it is.”


	3. Ghosts & Waves

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> enjoy.

Sansa wonders if the sea had looked like this to Ashara Dayne.

_Did she hesitate, before she jumped?_

The sea looks so beautiful, from where she stands. The balcony that was adjoined to her bedchambers is dark, but Sansa prefers it dark. There is something within the darkness that holds some respite; a break from the constant chatter, and the white noise. Court is the prison in which she is chained, and her balcony, where salt hangs in the air and the stars can be seen, is the only freedom she is allowed.

Even the gods will not blame you if you jump, a voice whispers, and she wonders if that is true. She wonders, for all they have done to her, if they will blame her for want of freedom.

The stone railing feels cold beneath her palms, and Sansa wonders what it would feel like on the soles of her feet. She peers over the railing, to the rocks beneath, and wonders if the water would feel as cold as the air did. Winter is coming, whispers her father’s voice from the depths of her mind. It does not make her smile.

Sansa steps forward, inhaling the salt that lingers in the air, and thinks of the first day she had been gifted these rooms. They were larger than her rooms in the Tower of the Hand of the King, and even though Sansa had been content to remain in those rooms, the Dowager Queen had insisted that the wife of the King should be close to him. However, these were not the Queen’s rooms. No, the King would never think to take those from his mother.

Sansa looks to the sea once more, and wonders if they ever recovered Ashara Dayne’s remains. Sansa wonders if the Dayne’s had crypts, as they do in Winterfell, or if they bury their dead in a different way. _I am to be buried beside a man I hate_ , Sansa thinks, her stomach twisting in horror as her nails dig into her palms. I _will never return to Winterfell._

 _If you truly wish it to be done_ , she thinks, _the sea will claim you._

It would be so very easy, Sansa thinks, to die. She envies her mother, and her brother, and her father too, for in death they have escaped the burden of life. When she was told of the death of her mother and brother, she had been disturbed with grief. And yet it had been a selfish grief – a grief that focused on nothing but her pain. How selfish are the living, Sansa thinks, for wishing those we lose remain in pain with us.

Sansa thinks of her mother’s face, and sighs. The memory of her is fading, and she knows she has not much time left before she will not remember what her mother looked like. Sansa thinks that out of all the pain she has suffered, the loss of the memory of her mother’s face, and voice is the cruellest of them all.

How easy it would be, to be with them.

“Death is not something to be envied, Sansa.”

Sansa whips around, her eyes wide as she sees her father standing before her. Her heart skips, as it always does, when she sees him again. It is sporadic, and odd, and irrevocably mad, and yet before her stands a man that is supposed to be dead. He is dead, Sansa corrects herself, he is dead and you are simply mad.

“I do not envy it,” Sansa tells the ghost, shaking her head. “Now go away – I cannot have you here.”

“I am here for you, Sansa,” Her father tells her, a smile twitching on his lips. “You only see what you must.”

“This is not my doing,” Sansa sneers, before turning. “Go away!”

“Your Grace?”

Sansa whips around once more, startled at the voice of her lady’s maid. Her father was nowhere to be seen – instead, Shae stood at the door, her dark eyes softening as she looks to the Queens hands. “My Lady, it is freezing outside.”

Sansa notices the cold then. “It is not so bad, Shae.”

Shae steps onto the balcony, shivering as she walks. “I am not from the North, your grace – I do not do well with these sorts of winds.”

Sansa smiles, despite herself. She glances at Shae, who is wrapped in her cloak, and knows why she thinks her strange - Sansa wore nothing but her night slip, a thin silk shift that did nothing to protect her from the cold. I am of the North, after all, Sansa thinks, looking over the crashing waves. A wolf in a lion’s den.

“They say,” Sansa begins, thinking back to the sound of her husband’s ranting, “they say the North is buried in snow. That Winterfell is all but gone.”

“That was your home, no?”

“Yes,” Sansa says, nodding. “Yes, it was my home. Once.”

Shae steps toward the Queen, and wraps her hand around the Queens forearm. “You should come inside, your Grace. You will catch a chill out here.”

Sansa does not want to leave, but she knows that she cannot stay here. So she nods, and lets Shae lead her back into her bedchamber, where the fire is roaring and warming the room unbearably.

“I don’t believe him, you know,” Sansa says, as Shae leads her to the fire.

“About what, your grace?”

“That Winterfell is gone,” Sansa says, her voice even, and steady. “Winterfell can withstand any snow storm – gods, it was always warm. It has survived thousands of Winters – this one shall be no different.” Sansa sits down, before she spits, “He told me it was gone to spite me.”

“Shhh, my lady,” Shae hushes her, before offering her the tea. Shae waits, before Sansa downs the tea and gives the empty cup to her hand maiden. “Are you alright?”

Sansa knows what Shae is referring to. Of course, she knows. “It was not so bad, tonight.”

“Do you wish for Milk of the Poppy?” Shae asks, kneeling before Sansa as she pulls back her shift. Her thighs are littered with the evidence of her husband’s madness, but Sansa has grown used to the pale flesh discolouring.

“No,” Sansa murmurs, before she casts a concerned gaze to the door. “I have too much to do tomorrow, and I cannot be ill.”

Shae sighs. “Sansa …”

“I am fine, Shae,” Sansa snaps, rubbing her forehead. “I am fine.”

Shae remains silent, for she cannot object again. She goes to the vanity, where the jewelled hair brush lays, and gathers it in her hands. The crackling of the fire echoes off the walls, and Sansa flinches when Shae begins to brush her long, auburn locks.

“Shae,” Sansa begins, her eyes trapped on the flames as they lick at the charred logs. “Do you know of Ashara Dayne?”

“Ashara Dayne?” Shae repeats, before she shakes her head. “No, my lady.”

“She jumped from her window to the sea,” Sansa whispers, remembering the story.

Shae remains silent.

“Aren’t you going to ask why?” Sansa asks, cocking a brow as she turns to look at Shae.

“I do not care about Ashara Dayne, my lady,” Shae says, meeting Sansa’s eye. “There are many women who throw themselves into the ocean.”

“Yes,” Sansa says, nodding. “I know.”

“So why tell me of Ashara Dayne?”

Sansa smiles. “They say her babe died. That is why she threw herself into the waters.”

Shae’s hand stills, and her brow furrows. “That is quite … sad.”

“They said she was very beautiful,” Sansa says, thinking of the stories of the violet eyed Dornish maiden."That she had purple eyes, even." 

“Many women are very beautiful,” Shae says simply. "Beauty is not special." 

Sansa rolls her eyes, looking back at Shae. “Do you know what else they said, about her?”

“What?”

“That she was the mother of my father’s bastard,” Sansa says, recalling the rumours. “Jon Snow.”

“I did not know your father had a bastard,” Shae says, interest in her eyes.

Sansa hums a reply. “Yes.”

“What became of him?” Shae asks.

“He became the Lord Commander of the Knights Watch,” Sansa says, remembering how her husband had told her. “But he’s dead now. Stabbed by his own men.”

Shae tuts, before she moves to Sansa’s front and adjusts her shift. Sansa watches as she moves, before she says, “Maybe Ashara Dayne was the smart one.”

Shae looks up, saying sharply, “How? Because she died?” Sansa remains silent, as Shae glares at her. “That is not a smart thing to do, my lady. Death is nothing, do you understand that? Death is just blackness – there is no relief, no kindness, no joy, in nothing.”

“Shae, I-“

A knock echoes at the door, and Sansa looks up in a panic. Shae gathers her skirts, and with one final glare goes to the door. “Who is it?”

“Septa Crane, to see the Queen.”

Sansa stands, throwing her cloak over her shoulders as she says, “You can enter.”

The doors open, and Sansa cannot help the smile that sprouts onto her face when she sees her daughter.

“Mama!”

Sansa scoops her daughter into her arms, a broad smile on her face. “Ah, my little wolf?”

Her daughter is small, for just two years of age. But she is the light of every room, with her mop of dark curls and her bright, Tully eyes. It is almost ironic, for her features are easily mistaken to be Baratheon by all that see her. For all that her gender disappointed the King, and his mother, her colouring did not.

Sansa was not dumb, nor was she blind. Her daughter was the recipient of Stark genes, and her mother’s eyes – not the darkness of the House of Baratheon. As she grows, Sansa can see Arya more and more in her daughter’s face, but sometimes, she can see her the gentle beauty of her husband’s features shining on her daughter’s face.

And that makes her sick.

“The little Princess has been distraught, your grace,” Septa Crane says, a soft smile on her face. “I have not been able to get her to sleep, and-“

“That is fine, Septa Crane,” Sansa says, bundling Joanna in her arms as she stands. “You may leave us.”

Sansa grins broadly as she peers back at Joanna. “Have you had a good day, my Princess?”

“Yes, Mama,” Joanna says, grinning. “But you didn’t come and say goodnight.”

“I know, Anna,” Sansa says, placing her daughter on her bed. “I was with your father.”

Joanna smiles at the mention of her father, and Sansa wants to rip the smile from her face. _She loves him_ , Sansa thinks, the guilt at allowing her daughter anywhere near her husband ripping through her gut.

“Sleep, now,” Sansa says, as she tucks her daughter beneath the furs and wraps her in her arms. “And you shall dream of wolves and birds, my love, just like Mama.”

And as she looks at the small face, as her eyes flutter and sleep comes down upon her, Sansa wonders what will become of her in the coming moons.

No one is safe, now.

 

* * *

 

“They’re in Dorne, apparently.”

“Dorne.” Sansa rolls the word in her mouth, as she looks to Tyrion. “They’re so close.”

“Hmm,” He says, taking a sip of his wine. “Close enough to taste, really. Your husband is practically losing his mind – he thinks we are going to win.”

Sansa cannot help but laugh. “We. The city will desert us as soon as they feel the fire.”

“Desert him, maybe,” Tyrion says, his scar twitching. “They will not desert you, my lady. As long as you are their Queen, the city will be painted red and gold.”

“I am no Lannister,” Sansa snaps, annoyed at her friend.

Tyrion laughs, and raises his glass. “If you say so.”

Sansa rolls her eyes. “I do.”

“Jaime says the same,” Tyrion says, taking a sip of his wine.

“That he is no Lannister?” Sansa jokes.

Tyrion chuckles, bitterness etched into his features. “Jaime says you are no Lannister. He spoke for Joanna today.”

“In which way?” Sansa asks, concerned. “What did he say?”

“They were speaking of the betrothal between Tommen and Margaery,” Tyrion says, waving his hand in dismissal of Sansa’s concern. “He said that if a child was born to them, if a son was born to them, Joanna should still be the heir.”

“He is mad if he thinks your family would ever-“

“Mad he is,” Tyrion agrees with a nod, before he sighs. “But he will protect Joanna.”

“Why?” Sansa asks, anger at talk of Jaime. “Does he feel bad that he could not fulfil his promise to my mother?”

“How do you-“

“Ladies talk,” Sansa says. “That’s all they do, in fact. Talk, talk, talk. I’m going mad having to listen to them all gossip.”

“Aren’t we all.”

 

* * *

 

 

“She is not growing as Mrycella did,” Cersei comments, as she holds Joanna. “Mayhap she has too much Starkness in her, the poor thing.”

Sansa does not bristle at the Queen dowagers comment as she expects. Instead, she simply smiles and says, “The King says she looks like your late husband.”

Sansa notices, that whenever she so much as raises the notion of Joanna’s supposed likeness to Robert Baratheon, Cersei Lannister goes still. A part of Sansa suspects she enjoys the sight of Cersei on guard – of Cersei Lannister panicked. Of course, Sansa knows that as long as Joffrey is King, the truth is as distant as freedom, but it doesn’t matter for now – not when Sansa took such joy in taunting her.

“Well,” Cersei says, her voice distant, “if the King says so.”

“He does.”

Cersei straightens her back against the cushion of the litter, and throws a smile Sansa’s way. “You must be careful to shield Joanna from them today. The people can be wild.”

To you, maybe, Sansa thinks, before she reaches and takes Joanna from her grandmother’s lap.

“She shall be fine,” Sansa says, pressing a kiss to Joanna’s temple. “She is, after all, their Princess.”

It is cold, when they exit the litter.

Sansa holds Joanna tight to her hip as she climbs the steps to the Great Sept of Baelor, smiling to the crowd that blocked the streets. They cry out blessings, and throw petals of flowers at their feet as she walks, and Sansa cannot help but hold her babe tighter, knowing that the people love as they choose.

Westeros loved my father, Sansa thinks, and they had his head cut off.

“Mama?” Joanna asks, her voice soft against her mother’s ear.

“Yes?”

“Why are they yelling?”

Sansa smiles, stepping into the Sept. “They are not yelling, little wolf. They are singing -- for us.”

“But why?” Joanna stares up at her, her wide, Tully eyes blinking up at her.

“Because they love us,” Sansa whispers. “Quiet now – we must watch.”

Sansa watches, as a cloak of yellow is draped over the shoulders of Margaery Tyrell. Tommen is a sweet boy, and as Sansa watches him smile brightly at his new bride, she envies Margaery Tyrell. _She has a husband who takes joy in her joy_ , she thinks, _while my husband takes joy in my blood._

“She beautiful,” Joanna whispers into Sansa’s ear, and Sansa nods. Margaery Tyrell is beautiful, in the sort of way that flowers are. Warm, bright, and full of life, Margaery Tyrell takes the beauty from the rose of her sigil.

“Yes,” Sansa says.

“Not as beautiful as your mother,” Joffrey says, his eyes glaring into hers. “Or you, my sweet.”

Sansa knows she is supposed to find it kind. Once, she would have. But she knows, as she stares into the face of her husband, that it is no kindness. If there is one thing she has learned about her husband, it is that Joffrey Baratheon is a man of greed. He talks of her beauty not to compliment her, or pay her any kindness – it is to show his people that he has claimed the most beautiful woman at court.

Sansa wishes she was ugly, then – for if she was ugly, mayhaps she would not have been forced to marry Joffrey.

When they exit the Sept, the people cry out.

“Gods bless good Queen Sansa!”

“Bless the little Princess!”

“Long may they reign!”

The wedding feast is a thing of splendour, and grand extravagance. Sansa has been dressed in a gown of gold, with her crown of rubies woven into her thickly braided hair. Joanna was taken from her arms the moment they returned to the Keep by her Septa. Septa Crane was not her choice – no, every member of the Princess’ household was chosen by Cersei Lannister.

Sansa sits beside her husband on their dais as he drinks, her own goblet untouched as she watches the dancing. She cannot deny that it is a beautiful event, but it is made even nicer by her husband’s distraction. Joffrey is chortling at the jester that stands before him, his movements sloppy and his face showing nothing but a concealed fear. With Joffrey occupied, Sansa needn’t worry about entertaining him.

“Your Grace.”

Sansa turns, smiling at the sight of Margaery Tyrell. Her smile is warm, and bright, and Sansa wonders how long she shall maintain such a beautiful smile.

“Princess Margaery,” Sansa says, before she turns to Joffrey. “My love, may I speak with Princess Margaery?”

Her husband makes no noise; instead, he laughs at the jester in front of him and waves his hand in dismissal. Sansa smiles, before standing and taking the new Princess by the arm.

“You look beautiful tonight, your grace.”

Sansa smiles at Margaery’s compliment – the smile the same as the one she provides all the courtiers. It is not a true smile; it is a tight movement in her lips that seems to put those she talks to at ease. If I don't smile, they will think something is wrong. Mayhaps if they listened to my screams, they would not be surprised by my lack of smile.

“Thank you, Princess Margaery.”

It is a comment she receives often. It is always the same, though – the comments are always made with a dazed look as they stare at her jewels and her elaborate gowns. Sansa knows it must be a beautiful sight – a tall, fair, scarlet haired Queen who wears a crown of rubies and diamonds. She would have been bewitched as well, if she had seen the sight as a girl. You were bewitched by Cersei Lannister. She was the sun and you did nothing but be blinded by her light.

“It is quite strange,” Margaery admits, “to be called a Princess.”

Margaery Tyrell says it with a giggle – an elated sigh, almost. Sansa has half a mind to remind her that she was a Queen mere years ago, to another Baratheon man in another land. But Sansa does not make the snide comment, nor does she inform Margaery that the crown is twisted by vipers and their poison taints all that wear it. She simply smiles, and nods, as if she understands the excitement of the crown.

Sansa had imagined being Queen many times, as a child. She thought wearing the crown meant adoration, and joy – that being the wife of the King meant something. But she wore the crown they all envied, and wore the gowns they all copied, and yet there was … nothing. Nothing, but pain and death.

“You will get used to it, soon,” Sansa informs her, smiling as the courtiers curtsied as they passed. “The crown is not so light as you may think.”

Margaery halts, her eyebrows furrowing. “Is the crown too heavy for you, dear sister?”

_I am no sister to you._

“No,” Sansa muses. “The crown is perfectly settled on my head.”

“Good.” Margaery giggles. “You are, of course, a very good Queen.”

Sansa wants to tell Margaery to stop lying. Sansa wants to ask Margaery if she expects to usurp her with her own children. Sansa wants to ask how long Margaery will remain with an empty womb. Sansa wants to ask Margaery when she thinks she will be Queen. Sansa wants to ask Margaery if she has already begun asking how to sire a son.

There are many questions she wishes to ask this new Princess.

But she stays silent, and takes Margaery’s words with an ignorant smile and an empty head.

_I wear a crown of vipers, with poison dripping from my roots, and my only weapon is my smile._

It is later, when the moon is highest in the sky, that she goes to Joanna’s chambers.

She nods to the white cloak that guards the door, before she enters her daughters chambers and halts.

“What are you doing here?”

Jaime Lannister turns at the sound of her voice, before he bows. “Your grace.”

“No,” Sansa holds her hand up, and narrows her eyes. She cannot care for courtesies and false smiles, not when the Kingslayer is standing over her daughter’s cot. “What are you doing here?”

“I am seeing my … my niece,” He says, a tight smile on his lips. “She was crying earlier, you see.”

“Crying?” Sansa asks, her eyebrows furrowing. “Why did her Septa not come and get me? I would have soothed her-“

“She came to the Queen Dowager.”

Fury boils in Sansa’s chest, and she feels nothing but the tsunami of anger that takes hold. “Lady Cersei is not her mother. I am her mother.”

“Yes,” Jaime says, “but you needn’t worry, my lady. She calmed when I came to her.”

“You calmed her?” Sansa asks, surprised.

“I come and see her, quite often,” Jaime admits, turning to look back at Joanna. Her cheeks are pressed up against her hand, and reddened in a sleeping blush. Her lips twitch as she dreams, and Sansa has never seen a more beautiful sight. “She reminds me of Mrycella, if not … a little wilder.”

Sansa flushes, the insinuation of her daughters wildness shaming her. _Joanna is wild, and beautiful, and she is alive,_ Sansa thinks, pushing away the shame that always seems to creep up. The shame of being a wolf in a lions den.

Jaime chuckles. “If anything, she reminds me of your sister.”

Sansa’s head snaps up at the mention of Arya. She has not been spoken of in years, and to hear a Lannister mention her was like seeing the sun in this unbreakable winter. Sansa smiles, unable to stop herself, for the thought of her Joanna being like Arya is everything she clings to.

 _Joanna is a Stark_ , she thinks, and Arya was the Stark of us all.

“She reminds me of Arya too,” Sansa admits, stepping forward to brush her daughters curls from her face.

“She resembles your father, though, as your sister did.”

Sansa looks up at Jaime, feeling her heart clench at the suggestion that Joanna does not resemble Robert Baratheon.

“The King says she looks like his father,” is all she says, pressing a kiss to Joanna’s head.

Jaime laughs, a chortling, loud laugh. “Joanna looks nothing like Joffrey’s father, my Queen. But lets hope my nephew never comes to that realisation.”

Jaime goes to leave, but Sansa cannot let him – not when he has just said that.

“His father?” Sansa asks, looking over her shoulder. “His father had black hair, and blue eyes, just as Joanna does.”

“Joanna has Stark darkness, and Tully eyes.” Jaime chuckles. “I stared at your brother, and mothers eyes quite often when I was their prisoner. I know what Tully looks like.”

“Then it is lucky that Joanna does not have green eyes, and golden hair,” Sansa sneers, “for we would not like the whispers to come again, would we?”

“The whispers can come for us,” Jaime says, showing his teeth as he smiles. “They will not be the thing that kills us, my lady. I think you know that. Good night, your grace.”


	4. The Godless Two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> may not upload tomorrow as I have uni and I'm sort of caught up to what I had already written so chapters may not be as regular. But lets hope I can upload tomorrow.

“They do not tell me anything.”

“That is a lie.”

Tyrion stares at her like he knows her mind better than she does. It unnerves Sansa, to know that he thinks to presume her own thoughts. It is the one thing that she cannot stand about being in his presence - his presumptions. Every time he thinks to tell her what she is thinking, she wishes to repute it. But each time, he would be right and she would be nothing but angered.

The first time he had looked at her with such a glance, she had wilted – but a girl whose father had been slain and whose hand was weighed heavy by the ugly ring upon her left hand that her betrothed had gifted her learned that the stare of an imp was nothing. Tyrion was simply a man - an ugly man, she will admit, for when she first looked upon him, her vanity had blinded her. After all, when she had first met Lord Tyrion, she had thought him worse than his nephew - whose words were sweet and whose kisses were even sweeter. She knew better, now.

However, the first time Lord Tyrion had looked at her with that stare of his was months after their first meeting. It had been before the blackwater, when the King had asked her to kiss his blade.

And the Lord Hand had watched her kiss the blade her father once held, and echo a prayer for his safety. 

He had stared at her then, with such a curiosity in her eyes that Sansa had tried to shield herself from it.

“ _Will you_?” He had asked, tilting his head.

“ _Just as I pray for the Kings_.”

It had been since that day that Tyrion Lannister looked upon her differently. It is not a kind look – there is not gentle appreciation, or warmth in the way he gazes at her. No – Tyrion Lannister looks at Sansa like he would look at a Lord of the same standing. There is no belittlement, or judgement, or even humour within his eyes; no doubt, or distain.

Mayhaps that is why they are friends. To be talked to about matters of importance without them relating to fabrics, or jewels is like drinking water in a drought. Sansa has lived through years of meaningless nothing, and to live in the dark, without any information of the war her family fights, is like being chained an unmoving ship. She has suffered through conversation after conversation, courtier after courtier, and yet none would offer her insight into the going ons of the world outside the castle walls, except for Tyrion. 

Some days, Sansa would wonder – truly wonder – if there really was a war going on after all. And yet she would need only look to the scars on her body, or the heads that rested on spikes outside the walls of the Keep to know that the war as real as any war is. After all, war is nothing if not a state of imagined panic. 

In the Capital, finding truth is like finding goodness; it is far and in between, and when she does find it, the little bits of it she can, she can only hope it is not true, for it is grotesque. And yet she craves truth – she craves the little information that her husband lets slip while he was with her, or the information Lord Baelish would offer when she would accept an audience with him. She would hold it to her chest, whether it was the movements of the Northern army or if it was the recent battle fought, and would cling to the knowledge that she knew something important. 

The truth is a mutilated, odious thing that brought her nothing but pain and yet she would rather live in a prison of truth than a palace of lies. 

Tyrion is the only one that tells her anything, now.

“How is it a lie?” Sansa asks, closing her book and sitting across from him. “They tell me as much as they tell a beggar on the street. I am lucky if Grand Maester Pycelle gives me a forecast on how he thinks the clouds will form.”

Tyrion barks out a laugh. “The old fart can barely tell when he blinks, let alone if it’ll rain. I have never met a more godless man of the gods.” 

Sansa sighs, before she finishes her scrawl, signing the letter. She waits for the ink to dry, before she rolls it and places a ribbon around it. She will stamp it later, when Tyrion leaves.

“Who are you writing to?”

“Lord Baelish,” Sansa says. Tyrion cocks a brow, curious. “We have been writing for some time. He is, after all, my Uncle by law.” 

“That’s right.” Tyrion chuckles. “He married you Aunt. Tell me, does she still get her tit out to feed that boy?”

Sansa purses her lips, biting her laughter from escaping. “They seem very happy.” 

“Baelish is a snake,” Tyrion says. “You know this." 

Sansa sighs. “I do."  

“Then you would do better than to be writing to him,” Tyrion says. 

“I would do better than to do a lot of things, but if I was to take every piece of advice you give me, I would be a patron of brothels and drink way too much.”

Tyrion laughs. "Then you must take more of my advice than I once thought."

Sansa cannot help but smile, for she knows he is teasing her. “Margaery will be pregnant within a few moons. How long did they say before they come?”

“You act as if the King has an ally within their camps.” Tyrion laughs. “All we know is the rumours we are told, and even that is estimation, Sansa. I did not think you would worry about when Margaery Tyrell opens her legs – you yourself have already made clear what you shall do when they invade.”

Sansa narrows her eyes, and shushes him. “Be quiet.”

“Oh, please.” Tyrion laughs, waving his hand around. “There are no spies in your rooms, my Queen. If there were, do you not think the King would take issue to our audiences?”

Sansa ignores him. 

“I just do not think it is safe to speak so freely about such things,” Sansa says, measured. “Not in these walls.” 

Tyrion chuckles. “Do not concern yourself with Margaery Tyrell and her babes, Sansa. You yourself know that your throne is crumbling. And the funniest part is you do not even _care.”_  

“And what do you know?” Sansa asks, cocking a brow. “You, of all people, know that as _soon_ as that woman is with child your father and sister will be advocating for him to be named the heir.” 

“And would you truly mind?” Tyrion asks, curios. 

Sansa stands, her eyes narrowing. “Would I mind if my daughter is forsaken? Merely because she has the misfortune of being born a girl?”

Tyrion stays silent.

“I would mind.” Sansa laughs, shaking her head at the ridiculousness of such a question. “My daughter is not disposable. She is heir to the throne – the only child of the King and his Queen. She is smart, and bright, and is _beloved._ She is heir to House Baratheon, and _heir_ to the House of Stark – to the North-“

“The North belongs to the Boltons,” Tyrion says, his voice low.

Sansa whips around, his words echoing through her ears. _The North belongs to the Boltons_. She has heard it so many times before. But she knows, despite it all, that the North would belong to none other than the Starks. Her House was not destroyed – her brothers, and father, and mother may be all but dead, but she is alive. Sansa Stark may wear a Lannister crown, and a Baratheon cloak, but she is no less Stark because of the colours they have painted her with.  _My skin may be painted red, and gold, but my blood is that of the North._

“The North is mine,” Sansa sneers, her voice low. “The North is mine, and mine only. No one else’s.” 

“The King has gifted the North to the Bolto-“

“After he killed my mother, and the King in the North.” Sansa looks out to the ocean, her heart tightening at the thought of the wedding. _The Red Wedding,_ they all called it, with laughter in their voices. Sansa can still remember walking the halls, and hearing the courtiers giggle about what they had done to her brother. 

Sansa did not stumble then, and she will not stumble now.

“My brothers are dead,” Sansa begins, her eyes trapped on the crashing waves of the ocean. _Ashara Dayne jumped into the sea because she could see nothing else. I cannot jump._ “And my sister is all but dead as well. I am the only surviving child of the North, and they will remember me when I come for them.”

Tyrion chuckles. “You are going to claim the North? And when will you do that, my lady?”

“What would happen,” Sansa begins, “if Joffrey, and Tommen were to die?”

“Sansa-“ 

“Just humour me, Tyrion." 

“Mrycella would be Queen,” Tyrion says, before his face transforms into realisation. “Queen in the North?” Tyrion laughs, boldly. “Ah, I see. I see why you’re so calm about our imminent removal. Every time I speak of it, of the dragons coming to Kings Landing and lighting us all up like a fucking bon fire, you do not so much as blink. Do you- gods, woman, do you truly think Daenerys fucking Stormborn, _mother of dragons,_ and mother of my fucking nightmares will let you and your child leave here to claim a Kingdom she believes is hers.” 

“I believe a Queen cannot rule a Kingdom who loves another,” Sansa says, crossing her arms. “I believe people cannot be ruled by the fear of dragons. Not when they have known something else.”

“So you believe the _people_ will help you plead your case?” Tyrion asks. “Gods, you truly are thick.”

“She will kill my husband, and your sister, and your father,” Sansa says, “but she cannot kill me. Or Joanna.” 

“You should leave the moment they come,” Tyrion says, his face, which had been but full of laughter a moment prior, now melting into a sombreness Sansa does not recognise. “For you do not know war, my lady. You know the battles of court, and the politics in which you must play. You know kind words, and false smiles, and- and trickery, but you do not know war. Daenerys will not care if the people love you – not when she sees a Lannister crown in your pretty red hair and a Lannister babe on your tit.” 

“Tyrion …” 

“No,” Tyrion snaps, his cheeks red and his eyes narrowed. Sansa has only seen him this angered with Joffrey before - never has he been so indignantly angry at her, and she feels like the girl again, wilting beneath his gaze as if nothing has changed.  “No, you cannot argue or pretend or play pretty, Sansa. Don’t- this is not a game.”

Tyrion stands, and walks to where she is – grabbing her hand and forcing her to meet his eyes. The scar is the first thing Sansa sees, before she sees the desperation in his eyes. “I beseech you to not act on your pride. Yes, Sansa, you have survived by playing the politics of the court – you are a very good player in this game of thrones, but that is all you are. A player in a game. But war is no a game. They will not wait for you to play your cards, or to speak your words, or talk about the people. Sansa, you know this.”

Sansa looks away then. 

“Look at me, Sansa,” Tyrion demands, angry. He grabs her face, and pulls her to look at him. “When they come, they will kill you. And they will … they will kill Joanna. They will not be merciful, nor will they be better than us. They will round us up, and kill us all. They will do to us what we have done to them.” 

Sansa is quiet, thinking on Tyrion’s words before she speaks.

“When they come, I shall greet them and surrender the city,” Sansa says. “Do you know what your father did Elia Martell and her children?”

“Daenerys Stormborn will seek vengeance on you, and Joanna,” Tyrion snaps. “She will not spare you because you are a woman, and she is a child, or because Elia Martell suffered the same fate. You are stupid, if you think that she will not do as what was done. You are like your father, Sansa.”

Sansa's head snaps up. “Do not bring up my father-“

“People like to talk about how Tully you are,” Tyrion says, nodding. “And I will agree, you have your mothers look. And her strength, and her stubborn intellect, and her rather grating judgement. But it is neither your beauty or your stubbornness that will get you killed. It is thinking that strangers are honourable.”

“I do not think-“ 

“To think an invader will grant mercy is to think an invasion has honour,” Tyrion begins, taking a sip of his wine. “And believe me, my beautiful, kind Queen, that honour has no place in war.” 

Tyrion walks around her, and sighs, but continues to the door. His words echoed through Sansa’s mind, before the rage begins to crawl up her chest and claim her words, fuelling them.

“I have not seen war?” Sansa asks, repeating his words. Tyrion turns at the sound of his voice, and gives a nod. “Then that makes _you_ the stupid one. For I battle every day I wear this crown. No. I have battled every day I have been in this city. Every word, every smile, every tear has been my battle in this war.  Every time he has hit me, spat on me, grabbed me, cut me, fucked me, smacked me, punched me, stabbed me, I have been silent. I have not resisted, or rebelled - I have survived.”

Surprise coats Tyrion’s face, but Sansa is not finished. “You _men_ think you have a monopoly on pain, but you have felt _nothing._ For your one scar, I have hundreds, and for my husband’s scars I have thousands. My body is a battlefield, and my marriage a war, so do not think to tell me I know nothing of it. I may be a woman, but I have waged a war in my own court and have lived, which is more that can be said for the men that march off to war and come back in _boxes,_ or for the Lords that sit in councils and order that weddings should be red.”

“Sansa…” 

“You people are …” Sansa halts, her breath rattled and her heart beating too fast. She cannot think clearly – she is too enraged, too upset, too distraught to even think with some sense.

Tyrion seems to see her internal struggle, for he shakes his head, and says “Gods,” as if it would somehow make anything better. 

“When Joffrey took my father’s head, I thought the Gods would look upon me and give me something better. When Joffrey began to beat me, I thought again that the Gods would treat me better next time. And when my mother, and brother were slaughtered, and my people destroyed, I thought … mayhaps the Gods are testing me. Mayhaps I am meant to be more than those that have died. But when they forced me into that wedding gown, and draped a Baratheon cloak over my shoulders, and then held me down while my husband took his rights, I realised that the Gods do not care.” 

Sansa shrugs, and began to pour another glass of wine before offering it to Tyrion. “The Gods were not making a plan for me, or controlling this game I had been forced to play. No, it was not the Gods that made these choices for me – it was the Kings council, and your sister, and my husband, not the fucking Gods.”

She is nearly hyperventilating with the anger that is spurting and raging within her, but something stops her from raving any further. Mayhaps it is the smile on Lord Tyrion’s face that prevents her from further insulting him, or maybe it is the exhaustion that begins to settle within her body.

It is but a moment of silence before Tyrion chuckles, and raises his just poured glass. “So we are the Godless two.”

Sansa wants to be angry, but all she can do is laugh.

“Let us hope that we are wrong,” Sansa says, taking a sip of her wine, “and that the Gods save us all.”

Tyrion laughs so loudly that he nearly falls off his chair.

 

* * *

 

She leaves when the castle sleeps.

Maegors has been her home for the past five years, and so she knows every corner of the keep. Exploring these walls that dragons had built had started from boredom, but it had led to something more – a respite from the court, and from the King.

When she was a child, Winterfell had been so vast to her. While Arya would spend hours chasing after Robb, and Jon, she would spend what little time she had away from Septa Mordane in the Crypts. She could not help herself, when it came to the Crypts. She could spend hours within the tunnels, walking from Stark to Stark, before she would end in the same place.

_Lyanna Stark._

Sansa would always stare at the effigy of her departed Aunt with curiosity. Of course she knew the story, more than most; she had spent hours listening to Septa Mordane talk of the Tourney at Harrenhal and the crown of love and beauty.

Her father had found her in the Crypts one day, after she did not return for supper. She had not realised the time had gone, nor had she heard them calling her name. He had grabbed her by the shoulders, and had shaken her, his anger at her disappearance replaced by his momentary grief.  

“ _Sansa, you cannot hide away like that,”_ He had snapped, his Stark eyes burning with anger. “ _You could have gotten hurt – you could have gotten lost. Do you realise how worried you mother is? Gods, Sansa, you cannot **run** off like that!” _

She had recoiled, surprised by her father’s rage. “ _I’m … I’m sorry, Papa.”_

Eddard Stark had been quiet for a moment, before he turned to the effigy they stood in front of. Sansa could recall how she watched him, so fascinated with the strange expression on her father’s face that could not turn away. For her father, strong and stoic, looked at the face of his dead sister and blinked away his tears. 

“ _Sometimes …”_ He murmured, nearly too low for her to hear, “ _you remind me of her.”_

She was too young, at the time, to realise why her father would be so pained by the grief of his loss.

Now, she knew.

Maegors is nothing like Winterfell.

 It was intricately built, designed to mislead its inhabitants. Mrycella had been the one to teach Sansa of the hidden stairwell near the east wing, and Tommen showed her the tunnels where the dragon skulls were. But after her marriage, it was she that found the way out.

Her cloak drags on the floor as she descends down the steps, the purse heavy on her belt. It is half way down the stairs that she hears footsteps echoing her own, stilling her. Fear runs rampant through her, screaming; _he’s found your secret, he’s found your secret, he’s found your secret._

“Who’s there?” Sansa calls out, fumbling for the small dagger she keeps within the folds of her skirt. 

Heavy footsteps are her answer, and soon, standing on the step above her, is Jaime Lannister.

“Good evening, your grace,” Jaime says, with a crooked smile. “It’s a nice night for a walk.” 

“Why are you here?” Sansa asks, exasperated. 

Jaime chuckles. “I was guarding your door, my lady.” 

“Where’s Sir Jon?” Sansa asks, shocked. Sir Jon Highsley always guarded her door; she knew that, because once a week she would drop a small purse of golden coins in his hand and be on her way.

“Relax, your grace.” Jaime chuckles. “I am not here to spoil your fun.” 

Sansa sighs, annoyed as she turns to looked down the stairwell. “You cannot come with me.”

“Your grace, you are only going,” Jaime steps down, to join her on the step, “If I go with you.” 

Sansa stays silent the rest of the way out of the Keep. 

When they reach the rocks, Jaime laughs. “How did you find this?” 

Sansa grimaces. “I had a lot of time on my hands.” 

The streets of Kings Landing are quiet as Sansa, and her white cloak Knight weave through them. They do not speak, and for that Sansa is grateful – she does not want to make small talk with her husbands father.

She knocks thrice, before Kya opens the door, a broad smile on her face. “Your grace!”

Sansa holds a finger to her lips, and smiles. “Can we come in?” 

Kya looks to Jaime, her eyes uncertain before she nods. “Yes, yes, come.” 

Kya leads them through to her solar, passing sleeping body after sleeping body. Jaime walks beside her, muttering under his breath, “You brought us to a Brothel?” 

Sansa silences him with a look, before they come to Kya’s solar. It is small, and cramped with child after child, sleeping on pillows and donated furs. Sansa can see the pillows from her chambers, and the bear skint hat Joffrey had gifted her on the first anniversary of their wedding. 

Lining the room are his gifts – his pillows, and furs, and skins. Sansa would smile, and thank him when he would present them to his wife, usually at a banquet, and would then proudly display them in her solar for a week after. And then, after her husband had forgotten that he had ever gifted such a thing to her, she would quickly dispose of it. 

_I do not need his gifts,_ she could recall thinking, _but they do._

“How have you been, Kya?” 

Kya grimaces. “It is ‘ard, milady. The children are getting colder.”

“I know,” Sansa says, sighing. “I wish I could have brought more furs.”

“We are grateful for your presence, milady,” Kya says, blushing. “We-we- it is an 'onour to have the Queen here.” 

Sansa smiles gently, before she pulls the pouch from her belt and places it in Kya’s hands. Confusion coats Kya’s face as she looks to the pouch, which differs from what Sansa usually has brought to the brothel.

“These are some of my jewels,” Sansa says, watching as Kya opens the pouch with wide eyes. “All … of them, actually. And I need you to sell them.”

“But milady-“ 

“Please,” Sansa says, pushing the jewels into Kya’s hands. “You must … you must leave the city.”

“Your grace,” Jaime says from behind her, his voce stern.

Sansa steps forward, folding her hands over Kya’s, before she whispers, “You must take the children, and get as many as you can out. These jewels will pay for it all – for food, for transport.”

“Milady, we can’t just leave,” Kya says, looking around. “I run a brothel, I cannot leave it. We only take in children that the orphanage cannot feed.”

“If you do not leave,” Sansa says, “you may die.”

Shock consumes Kya’s face. “What?”

“War is coming,” Sansa says, tightening her hold on Kya’s hands. “And we may burn.”

“Your grace,” Jaime says, once more. “That is enough.”

Sansa looks over her shoulder, and purses her lips, before she steps away from Kya. Sansa can feel the rage within her chest, sprouting and flaring as she stares at Jaime Lannister, before she stands beside him and meets Kya’s eyes. The children shift, and moan in their sleep, squished together and sharing blankets. Sansa wants to wrap them all in her arms, and take them North, where Winterfell will be hers and she can give them a home.

But the life her mind conjures when she needs it, the life where winter is gone and winter roses bloom at Winterfell is nothing but a dream she can never fully grasp. And every time she thinks of what she could do, what she wanted to do, she must change her thoughts, for if she truly thinks of what she wants, she knows she will go to the balcony and do as she has so imagined.

A child coughs in their sleep, and Sansa turns to look at him. He must be about Joanna’s age, with a mop of blonde curls and rosy cheeks. Sansa knows she cannot allow them to stay in this city, where fire will soon reign and not even the Gods could save them. _Children should not be victims of this war,_ Sansa thinks, _and war should not be a game._

_Yet these are the games we must play._

“At least consider it,” Sansa says quietly. “If not, you must begin buying as much food and water as you can. The city may be under siege for days, or even weeks and you must prepare.” 

Kya purses her lips, her eyebrows pulling together before she nods. “I will begin organising the children.” 

Sansa smiles, relieved. “Thank you, Kya.”

“But milady …” Kya begins, looking to the jewels. “If there is a war coming, should we not … should we not tell people?”

“Don’t,” Jaime murmurs, his voice but a whisper. 

“Tell as many as you can to leave,” Sansa says. “But do not make them panic.”

Kya is sombre when she nods, before looking to the pouch of jewels and meeting Sansa’s eyes. “Thank you.”

When they leave, Sansa is consumed by panicked nervousness. 

“Are you going to tell the King?” bursts from her lips before she can stop it. 

Jaime, who has been silent, continues to walk, no words escaping him. _I’m an idiot,_ Sansa thinks, _I have allowed a man whose family has imprisoned me to know a secret no one else knows. How could I be this foolish?_

“Will you?” Sansa asks again, her voice becoming desperate as she thinks of what this may mean.

Beating after beating. Bruise after bruise. More blood. More screams. 

_I am no soldier,_ she thinks, _I cannot endure this much pain._

Jaime stops, causing Sansa to halt in her steps. He is shaking his head, and hope flares in her chest, like rising smoke.

“How long have you been visiting them?” He asks, and Sansa looks to the stars, wondering if this mistake will be her last.

_I have kept this mine for so long,_ she thinks, _and now a white cloak will be my ruin._

“Since Joanna,” Sansa says, biting her lip. “Please, please you cannot tell the King-“

“Are you mad?” Jaime laughs, before his laughter becomes lost in the wind and only the whisp of the air through the alley is left. Jaime’s face sombres, and he steps forward, his face contorted in a strange expression that Sansa cannot determine. It is guilt, she knows as much, but there is something else – a shame that she has never seen on a Lannister’s face – that makes her halt. “No, Sansa. I am not a cruel man, despite what they all will have you believe.” 

“My mother kept you as her prisoner,” Sansa muses, remembering what Lord Baelish had told her. “She thought you pushed my brother Bran from that window.” 

Jaime does not looked shamed when he says, “I have done many things for love.” 

“Love,” Sansa scoffs at the word. “You know nothing of love.” 

“And you do, my lady?” Jaime taunts, before his expression sours. “I would say we are both inept at knowing what it is.”

“I am no idiot,” Sansa says. “I know the truth. Cersei and Joffrey would have the whole world believing that Joanna is the proof of her faithfulness, and his father, and yet she looks nothing like Robert Baratheon. My daughter is not justification of your sin, and yet Cersei parades her around as if she is the crown upon which she craves. Your version of love is a twisted, vile thing – mine is violence. There is no comparison.”

Jaime is quiet, before he says, “Love is love, Sansa. Love is guilt, and shame, and joy, too. It is … it is something I cannot always explain.” 

Sansa laughs, folding her arms across her chest as she turns away.

“But I do not love Cersei anymore,” Jaime says, stepping toward her. “And Joffrey is no son to me.” 

“Nephew then?” Sansa asks, not being able to help herself. 

“They call me Kingslayer because I killed a mad man,” Jaime says, coming to stand beside her. “And I will do it again if it means I keep this place from burning.” 

Sansa’s heart stutters. “You … you would kill him?” 

Jaime does not meet her eyes when he says, “I will keep Joanna safe.”

And for Sansa, that is enough.

 

* * *

 

Sansa’s ladies follow her like a shadow, but when they hear the screams, they scatter. 

It is Cersei, who bursts out of the Hands chambers with fury as her mask. 

“Sansa Stark!” Cersei barks, halting Sansa in her walk.

Sansa cocks a brow at the sound of her name – her true name – and she cannot help but revel in the sound of it. She has not been called the name Stark in so long that she has to subdue her smile, and remind herself that Cersei Lannister is not saying it to be kind – she is saying it with a poisonous tongue and hatred on her face. 

“My Lady,” Sansa says as Cersei stomps toward her, her gown of black swishing at her feet.

“Have you heard what they have done?” Cersei sneers, her face contorting in anger.

“No,” Sansa says, watching as Cersei heaves with rage. “No, my lady, I have not heard.” 

“They have my daughter in _chains,_ ” Cersei spits. A crowd has begun to form, at the edge of their conversation. Courtiers watch on with wide eyes, and Sansa thinks that mayhaps she should invite Cersei into her chambers so they can talk privately. But there is something within Cersei’s eyes that unnerve her – something manic, and mad. “Mrycella … imprisoned. The King says she is likely going to be tried.”

Sansa remembers Mrycella, and feels her heart contract. Mrycella was a sweet girl, so far from either of her parents that Sansa had enjoyed her, despite their difference in age. She had always been confused as to why Sansa was treated different, and had never treated her in the same vein as Joffrey, or her mother. After all, Mrycella is just like her; traded like cattle for the highest price to the man willing to pay the most. 

“That is awful, my lady,” Sansa says, as genuinely as she can. “Is there anything we can do?”

“No, you silly, silly girl,” Cersei snaps, before her eyes go to the ruby necklace that rests on Sansa’s collarbone. She steps forward, and grabs the necklace, “That is mine.” 

“It is the Queens,” Sansa says calmly, and places her hand over Cersei’s. Sansa had no more jewellery left, and so she had resorted to what little of the Queen jewels she had been allowed to maintain. “And I am the Queen.”

“You-“

“It is lucky, that Mrycella is in Dorne and not in Kings Landing, my lady,” Sansa murmurs, before she steps back and unclasps the necklace from her neck. “Remember, my lady, that Dorne does not kill its women. Especially not it’s Princess’.” 

“I-“ 

“Keep the necklace,” Sansa says, pressing the necklace into her hands. “It is a gift from your Queen.”

Sansa turns then, and begins to walk away. She pushes her hands into the depths of the folds of her skirts, to hide them from sight. For if anyone was to see her, they would think her courageous and steadfast, but if they were to see her hands tremble as violently as they were now, they would truly know how frightened she was.

Shae is beside her in an instant, and she looks over her shoulder. “Her mind is not the same as it once was.”

“No,” Sansa says as they round a corner. “No, it’s not”

 

* * *

 

 

“What is this for?”

“It is for you,” Sansa says, pushing the purse of coins into Shae’s hand. “There is a ship leaving tonight for White harbour and I need you to get on it.”

“Sansa-“

“No,” Sansa says, passing her a scarf and one of her coats. “This shall keep you warm. When you get to White harbor, ask to be taken to New Castle and to talk to Lord Manderly - his name is Wyman. You must tell them … you must ask them if the North remembers – if the Manderly’s remember the promise they made. And then you must give him this."  

“What-“ 

Sansa shoves a rolled letter into Shae’s bag, and forces it into her hands. “I need allies in the North. And you are my proxy.” 

Shae looks conflicted, and opens her mouth to say something when Sansa steps forward and grabs both of her hands in hers. “They will kill you when they come. And I will not be able to keep you safe.”

“What about- what about Lord Tyrion?”

Sansa smiles, knowingly, and once again pushes the bag into Sansa’s hands. “I shall keep him safe, and after, after it is all done, he shall find you.”

“Your grace, I do not think I can do this,” Shae says, taking a step back.

Sansa bites her lips, before resolve hardens her face. “I am your Queen, and as your Queen, I am ordering you to do this. I shall be fine.” 

“Sansa …” Shae says. “I cannot leave you alone.” 

“It is my order.”

Shae looks unsure, but slowly nods and Sansa can exhale.

As Sansa is watching the ship leave from her balcony, she can feel him beside her.

“You should leave too,” Her father says, his eyes worried.

Sansa shakes her head, glancing over her shoulder at Shae’s replacement. _A Cersei choice._ “You should not be here when _they_ are near.” 

Her father chuckles. “I do not care about them.” 

“I will be fine,” Sansa says, to him and to herself.

“And Joanna?” Eddard asks.

Sansa sighs, exasperated as she turns to look at him. He is in Northern attire, and the fur cloak that hangs at his neck is so familiar Sansa wants to reach out and pluck it from him. _They threw it into a fire, with the rest of his belongings._ She knew because Cersei had told her – that her father’s clothes, books, and even the leathers that he would tie his hair with had been thrown into their fire.  

Sansa’s heart constricts at the thought of it, before she sighs. “Joanna shall be safe. She will be with me.”

“I thought you would be safe,” He says, “because you were with me.”

Sansa closes her eyes, and exhales. “This is different.”

“Is it?”

Sansa opens her eyes, blinking away her tears to find herself alone. 

“Fuck,” She snaps, slamming her hands down on the railing before she lets a sob escape her throat. _I am losing my mind, like the rest of them. Are we all to go up in flames, with our minds lost before the fire even comes?_

“My Lady?” Her handmaiden asks. “Are you alright?” 

“Fine,” Sansa barks, wiping away her tears. “Fine.”

That night, when she sleeps, she dreams she is a bird, flying far from Kings Landing.

 

* * *

  

Joffrey is going mad.

The Grand Hall smells of death, for it has become a place of it. 

And Sansa has watched, every day, as he kills man after man, woman after woman. 

_And I can do nothing._

The day before they come, there is a clarity in his eyes. 

“I shall stay with you, tomorrow,” He says, grabbing her by the shoulders. His grip is too firm, and his eyes are too crazed, and as Sansa looks at him, she wonders if she can even recognise him. This man, this twisted man that has hurt her more than anyone else, is looking to her with fear in his eyes, a fear she has never seen him wear.

He means that he will not be fighting on the front lines, despite his army doing so. Sansa wants to shake him, and tell him that he is being a coward, as he always has been. Sansa wants to tell him that if her father was still alive, he would be fighting alongside his men, not cowering beside his wife and mother. Sansa wants to grab the sword that was once his fathers from his belt, and strike him down, as he has done to her so many times before. 

But she does not.

For she knows if Joffrey is with the men tomorrow, she will not be the one to end it.

_And I must end it._

“Of course, my love,” Sansa says, smiling brightly as he leans forward and presses a kiss to her hand. “You shall protect us.”

“Yes,” Joffrey nods, erratic. “Yes, I will.”

Sansa smiles, before she catches the eye of Jaime Lannister, who is standing behind Joffrey with a grim expression on his face. Sansa cocks a brow, and catches his gaze, before wondering if this is what the mad King looked like when Jaime killed him. 

Joffrey holds her gaze, before he lets her go and storms over to where his mother stands.

“My Sir Jaime,” Sansa says, moving to stand in front of him.

“Your Grace,” Jaime bends his head, and Sansa smiles tightly. 

“Are you ready for the battle tomorrow?”

Jaime smiles. “You should not fret, my Queen. You shall be safe.”

“I know,” Sansa says, smiling before she bends her arm through Jaime’s. “Walk with me?”

They walk to the gardens, where snow is falling and their breath can be seen in the air. If there are any places Sansa values in Kings Landing, it is the gardens. Once, they bustled with courtiers and offered her no peace, and so she had retreated to the Godswood. But Joffrey had destroyed that after he had learnt it was a place she favoured, and so she came to the gardens.

The cold has chased the courtiers away, and so Sansa has had the gardens to herself. It is strange, that the most beautiful of flowers bloom in the most of trying of weather. But it is the blue winter roses that Sansa finds herself standing in front of, and pruning each day – with careful, steady hands.

In the heart of the South, she has found the North and she cannot let them take that away from her.

“Winter roses,” Sir Jaime comments, no smile on his lips. “Your Aunt would have liked those.”

Sansa gazes at the roses for a moment, before she says, “Mayhaps. But I did not bring you here for the gardens.”

Jaime cocks a brow. “Please, my lady, continue.”

She turns, and looks at him then, with his white cloak and his handsome gold hair. _He looks just like his son,_ she thinks, her stomach twisting. Fishing the vial from her sleeve, she holds it out and places it into Jaime’s good hand.

“What is-“

“They will burn you when they catch you,” Sansa says, gazing at the man her mother had imprisoned. Sansa wonders, if Jaime Lannister sees Catelyn Tully in her when she speaks. Sansa wonders, if he can see her as she was, or if he sees the corpse, which they say was thrown into the river after they had cut her neck to the bone. “And I am no Lannister.”

“My Lady …” Jaime says, his eyebrows knitting together. “I shall not be needing this.”

“Maybe,” Sansa says with a shrug. “But if you do…” 

Jaime clenches the poison in his hands, before he meets Sansa’s eyes. “What will you do?”

“I will keep her safe,” Sansa says, smiling. “As you will. But I know you shall not be with us when they come-“

“I have requested to be the Kings guard,” Jaime says, confused.

“And we both know that Joffrey will not have the Kingslayer protecting him,” Sansa says, patting his hand. “Take it. Destroy it. Drink it. I do not care. But I wanted you to know that I do not hate you, as I once did.”

Jaime’s lips twitch. “Well … if that isn’t’ a compliment I don’t know what is.”

“For you,” Sansa says, “you would be lucky to receive such high praise.”

Jaime chuckles, before he nods and looks to the moon. “Are you scared?”

“Terrified,” Sansa admits with a nod, before she too looks to the stars. “But if there is any justice, or any good left in the world, I would think it would favour me. But I have been wrong before, and I cannot see the Gods hands in this any more.”

“The Gods owe you for marrying you to Joff.” A laugh bursts from Sansa’s lips, before she looks back to where they entered the gardens. It is getting cold, and Sansa does not want to miss Joanna’s bed time. “I will not use it, you know.”

Sansa tears her eyes from the door, and looks to where Jaime is studying the poison. “Why?”

“Poison is a woman’s weapon,” He says, shrugging as he began to walk away. “I prefer my sword.” 

Sansa watches him walk away, and she wonders if she will ever see Jaime Lannister again.

And despite all that he was, Sansa hopes that this is not the last time she sees him. 

 


	5. War

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Please, please be aware this chapter contains rape and murder. Gory details included.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well new chapter is out! I'm not sure how often I'll be updating this weekend, my Mums turning 50 and I'm hosting her party so hopefully I'll be able to update once. Enjoy!

“ _I loved a maid as fair as summer with sunlight in her hair.”_

Joanna giggles as her mother sings, ribbons of grey and green floating in the air as she dances.

“ _I loved a maid as red as autumn with sunset in her hair,”_ Sansa sings, laughing as Joanna swishes the skirts of her gown and runs to jump.  

It hurts her, to see Joanna so happy. Sansa knows she should be grateful, to have a child whose life is untouched from cruelty and harm. But whenever Sansa see’s the wide, chagrined smile that belongs to her babe, her body becomes paralysed with the fear of what could take the smile from her. Will it be her father, whose cruelty knows no ends? Or will it be this war, who claim her babes smile?

_I was just like her,_ Sansa thinks, _before Kings Landing._

Sansa thinks of all the times in Winterfell she would smile – of the times she would laugh, and play. Most of the time it would be in the company of Jeyne Pool, who had gone missing from Kings Landing after her father’s death. But sometimes, it would be her siblings, who she would force to play with her.

Arya would kick, and scream, if she didn’t play the role of the jouster, and so one of her brothers usually forfeited the role to appease her. Sansa smiles just thinking about it, for she can still see the sight of Arya rushing towards Bran with a stick in her hands and yelling in triumph when Bran feigned defeated.

When Arya would smile, not even the Gods could turn her away.  

So when Joanna smiles, it is the face of a ghost Sansa sees, and not even the joy on her babes face can reconcile Sansa’s fear that the joy may be robbed from her child like the joy was robbed from Sansa.

_Joanna will never live the life I have led,_ she tells herself, _Joanna will never know the pain I have known. She will never be raped, or forced to marry. She will never be cut, or hit. And she will never be left alone, to be a puppet whose strings are pulled by Kings and Queens. I will never let that happen to her._

“Mama!” Joanna giggles. “Keep going!”

Sansa smiles, before she sings, “ _I loved a maid as white as winter with moonglow in her hair.”_

Another smile splits onto Joanna’s face as she demands, “Again, Mama!”

“Again!?!” Sansa asks, standing to wrap her babe in her arms. “I cannot sing so much, my wolf.”

“Oh, yes you can, Mama!” Joanna says, nodding furiously.

Sansa smiles, before she lifts her daughter onto her lap and studies her features. There is a raven curl that hangs so think it covers an eye, and so Sansa pushes it away, looking into the beautiful river that exists within her daughter’s eyes. Sansa wonders, about a different life when she looks into Joanna’s eyes.

Robb may have children, and Lord of Winterfell. She would have been married to a Northern Lord – one of Lord Karstarks sons was always suggested when she overheard talks from within her father’s solar. Arya would, of course, be resisting marriage in every aspect, and Sansa hopes that she would support her. But Sansa, of course, knew that if things were so different, then mayhaps Sansa would not be as changed as she is, and so she would still be as she once was; a fool.

Sansa likes to imagine Bran walking, or becoming the Knight he always talked of. She imagines him strong, and without the confines of a bed, for he should never have been robbed of his ability to walk.

And then there is Rickon … Rickon, who she hopes would be taller than their Lord Father and with his smile, too.

But they are all dead, and Joanna is the only one she has left.

“I love you,” Sansa says, bringing Joanna’s eyes to hers. “Mama loves you, you know?”

“Yes, Mama,” Joanna says, nodding. “I love you too.”

Sansa smiles, brushing her daughter’s curls away from her face. “Tomorrow, we must be strong, okay?”

“Why?”

“Because tomorrow there shall be fighting,” Sansa says. “And you may get frightened, for it is frightening, my love. But I will keep you safe – I will always keep you safe, even if you are very scared.”

Joanna’s eyebrows furrow, before concentration overcomes her face. “So … I must be brave?”

“Yes.” Sansa beams, nodding. “Yes, we must all be brave.”

“Brave like a Baratheon?” She questions, and Sansa’s heart clenches.

Sansa wants to scream that her daughter was no Baratheon – that her daughter, with Stark hair and Tully eyes, is a _Stark_ and nothing else. Sansa wants to tell the world that her babe, whose Baratheon name is nothing but an empty crown, is hers, and hers alone. _I carried her for nine moons, and I have cared for her. Her father has given her nothing but a name._

“No, my little wolf,” Sansa says, cupping her daughter’s cheeks. “We are to be brave, like Starks. What are our words?”

While the name Stark has been outlawed in the court, none could prohibit Sansa from speaking about her family –about her name – when she was alone with her daughter. Sansa would wait until her hand maidens left, and would then tell Joanna about the people she had never, and would never meet.

She would spend hours talking about her family, when Joanna was still in her belly. She would tell her of Eddard Stark, her grandfather whose name was tarnished by the lies of others. She would tell Joanna of how he would drag his feet when he was tired, or how he would whistle in the quiet moments of the day.

Joanna was but four months old when Sansa told her about Catelyn Stark. She would tell her daughter about how Lady Stark would sing her children to sleep, just as Sansa sung Joanna to sleep. She would tell her about the way her mother smelt – like roses and lavender.

She told Joanna of all her siblings, as well. She had spent so long telling Joanna about them all – about Robb, who she once beat at cyvasse and who sulked for the rest of the evening, and about Arya, who wore a constant layer of mud and grit. She told Joanna of Bran, who dreamt of being a knight, and of Rickon, who was just as little as Joanna is.

And sometimes, when Joanna would sulk, Joanna would tell her of Jon Snow.

Sansa had known, from the moment she had felt Joanna quicken within her womb, that she would never let her babe not know she is. For Joanna is descendant from the First men, and has the North in her veins. She is a Stark, through and through, and Sansa could never let her daughter think that she belonged anywhere but the North.

Joanna knew who Sansa was. Joanna knew her mother’s family, even if she would never meet them. Sansa could not have a child that did not everything about her family, for if her child was to always believe that family should be as the Lannister’s are, then Sansa would know she had failed.

For love, and joy, and family is not what the Lannister’s have. All they have is hatred, and jealously, and resentment, and Sansa would never let her babe know any of those things.

Joanna’s expression fills with concentration as she tries to recall the words that her mother has uttered thousands of times before – the words that Sansa has told her are hers, and hers alone.

“Winter is coming,” Joanna says, her voice filled with pride at her ability to recall them.

Sansa cannot help but beam at her daughter’s words. The sound of her tongue wrapping around the three words that Sansa had heard her entire life gave her more joy than she had felt since her babe was born. For in the depths of Sansa’s mind, she can imagine a future where Joanna is not a Baratheon or Lannister but a Stark who rules the North.

_And she will be._

Sansa nods, pressing a kiss to her babe’s forehead. “Yes, Anna. Winter is coming.”

It is later, when Joanna is sleeping in Sansa’s bed, that he comes.

“You are making a mistake.”

His voice is like cold water.

Sansa closes her eyes as the wind whips at her face, tightening her robe around her shoulders. “If I were to tell people I see you, they would say I’m mad.”

“I am your father,” He says, stepping beside her. “I am not madness.”

Sansa bites into her lip, shaking her head. “You are dead. Mother is dead. Robb is dead. We’re … we’re all dead.”

“Not you,” Her father says, smiling. “Or some of the others.”

Sansa blinks away her tears. “You are in my mind. That’s … that’s all you are.”

Her father goes sombre, and adopts the sadness that he always wears when she sees him. It is a disappointment, and a grief on his face that torments her. He sighs, before saying, “Joanna must be protected.”

“I know,” Sansa says, almost exasperated. “And this is the best way.”

“To hope that things will be as they always are? To hope he will be predictable?” Eddard asks, shaking his head. “You are betting on a storm, my love. You are betting on uncertainty. He may blow hot, he may blow cold – you do not know if he will do as you want-“

“I am his wife,” Sansa breathes out. “I may not know strategies and war, but I know Joffrey Baratheon.”

Pain pinches at her fathers face. “When they come, what shall you say?”

“I shall tell them that I am … that I am …” Sansa trails off, not knowing what to say. “I don’t know.”

“You will tell them that you are the Queen,” Eddard decides, and Sansa nods. “And then you shall surrender the city. You shall tell them that you have been a prisoner here, and that you were not of your own will, do you understand?”

“Aye,” Sansa says, nodding.

“And then …” Her father begins, “… you shall become their prisoner.”

Sansa cannot hold back her tears then.

They come from her gut, deep and tormented. She is full of sorrow, and she cannot stop the tears once they come. She is drowning in a river of grief, and she wishes she would surface from its depth, but as she blinks through her tears all she can see are the grey eyes of her father and his words echoing through her mind.

For she knows he is right. She knows, for all that she has told Tyrion or even Jaime, that she will have the crown stripped from her head, and her gown too. She knows they shall put her in a cell – if she is lucky she shall retain her chambers, but she is not sure. For she doesn’t know this white Queen – all she knows is that this is her only chance in surviving this war.

Eddard smiles, and places his hand on her back. It feels so _real_ , and it breaks her. She wants it to be real. She wants it more than anything, to be held by her father. She wants to lean her heard on her jerkin, and hear his heart beat through the leather. She wants to clasp her arms around his neck, and be a child again, while listening to his stories of winter and the North.

Sansa wants her father, more than anything, and it is a curse to know she will never see him again.

Not alive.

“Why are you doing this to me?” Sansa asks, holding onto the railing as she sobs. “Why? Why? _Why_?”

She wants to scream at the Gods. She wants to jump from this balcony. She wants to run North.

But she is frozen in place, unable to do anything but wait.

“You must not be proud,” Her father says, his voice at her ear. “Pride will kill the Lannisters, but it cannot kill you. You must be peaceful when you watch your crown burn, and you must be what they wish you to be. You must live.”

Sansa closes her eyes, listening to the waves beneath crashing as she whispers, “Will we even win, Papa?”

“Not even the Gods can win this war, my love.”

 

* * *

  

“Let us pray.”

The Keep shudders.

“We ask the Gods today to keep us safe…”

A window breaks in east wing of Maegors.

“… and reject this evil that comes to claim our good city …”

A lady sobs.

“… we ask the Father to judge as fairly, and to judge these invaders with an eye of justice …”

Joanna shifts in her arms, her eyelids fluttering in her sleep.

“… and the Warrior to keep our men strong, and our walls up …”

The King mutters something beneath his breath, fingering his sword.

“… we ask the Crone to bring us wisdom; to guide our generals, and our King in the path of goodness …”

Screams can be heard through the broken window, while the wind howls.

Grand Maester Pycelle halts in his prayer, his hands shaking as he looks to where the screams can be heard. He shakes his head, before returning his attention to the women, and children before him.

“… Finally we ask the Mother for gentleness, and fairness. We ask that she brings about an era of peace, where these invaders are defeated.”

No one seems particularly inspired by the ancient Maesters words, and Sansa is relieved that he has stopped talking. Words from a godless man mean nothing, especially now. _If the Gods are truly real,_ Sansa thinks, _is it not an insult to have a man of no gods praying to them?_

Grand Maester Pycelle limps toward them, dragging his robes against the stones. Sansa has never liked the man. For all his prayers, and preaching’s of kindness, she has only ever seen greed and pride, control and mastery. _Even the men of God in this city crave power and prestige._

“Your graces.”

His bow takes so long, and Sansa can no longer look at him – too frustrated at the sight of him that she takes to looking at Joanna, whose chest is steadily rising and falling.

Joffrey waves his hand in dismissal, an expression of carefully disguised anxiousness on his face. Sansa has not seen it very often; in fact it is one of his rare expressions that hold so much uncertainty that it frightens her. For if she had seen it before, she would know what to expect. She would know how to prepare.

Cersei sits beside Joffrey, as she always does. If Joffrey was to have a second head, Sansa was sure it would be his mother’s; always whispering in his ear, and guiding his hand. When he had first been crowned she had more control, and now … now no one could control the King.

Sansa has been playing with Joanna’s curls for ten minutes now, delaying what she knows she must do. Every breath is another moment wasted, and every time she tells herself she must begin, she thinks _just another moment._ Every time she begins to stand, she seats herself down again – her fear as crippling as the fall that had robbed her brother of his legs.

_Inhale,_ she thinks, before she lifts Joanna and brings her daughters head to her lips, _exhale._

Her daughter smells of roses, and winter. _Roses, and winter. Roses, and winter._ She repeats the words, over and over again, within the depths of her mind as she stands and motions for Septa Crane to come to her.

“Your Grace?”

Sansa smiles, placing Joanna into Septa Cranes arms. “Take Joanna to her rooms. She needn’t be in this room right now.”

Fear fills the Septa’s eyes. “But my lady-“

“You shall be safe,” Sansa says, “but the Princess needs her sleep.”

The Septa nods, unsure before she turns and beckons Joanna’s maids to follow her. Sansa sits back down, glancing to Joffrey who has watched the exchange with bored eyes. He looks away as soon as Sansa meets his eyes, and Sansa watches as he fingers the hilt of the sword that once was ice.

_Inhale._

_Exhale._

“My love,” Sansa begins, trying to conceal with fear in her voice with strength.

Joffrey cocks a brow, and looks to her. “Yes?”

_I need to get him away from them all._

“Do you think the fighting is nearly done?” Sansa asks, watching as his face contorts in annoyance.

“No,” Joffrey begins, before exasperation consumes his features. “I don’t know. Shall I have Lancel go onto the barracks and ask? Or shall I send you out there to ask for me?”

His words are dripping with toxic poison, and Sansa knows the looks on his face. She can see the rage buried deep within his green orbs, and the possessive want to silence her. Every time she had spoken out of turn the same look would come over his face – it was almost a look of anticipation.

Sansa hadn’t realised that until her first year of marriage. Every word spoken that was too resistant, or filled with a touch of anger would greet that face. She had come to fear it, for she knew what it meant to see her husbands face transform. It meant pain, and blood, and death, for some.

She had come used to expecting the look. Every time she would open her mouth, she would halt and even her voice. Steady, calm words would then flow from her lips – words that were coated with too much placidity that sometimes she didn’t hear her own voice within them.

And yet it had kept her safe, all these years. Sometimes she felt like nothing but a songbird, singing the tunes that they wanted her to whistle. But pretending had meant that she had lived, and she wanted to live more than anything. _I need to do this,_ she thinks, _I need to be the one to do it._

Sansa Stark knows Joffrey Baratheon. He is her husband, and her King. She has known every facial expression, every emotion, and she has seen them all. _One slip, and I am dead._ She has seen his joy, and his anger; has seen restraint, and his excess. Joffrey is no stranger to her - he is not simply the King to her.

“Mayhaps if you had been there …” Sansa says, her voice low.

Joffrey’s head snaps up, his eyes narrowing. _One slip._

Sansa Stark knows Joffrey Baratheon.

He is, after all, her husband. 

“What did you- what did you say to me?” He hisses, his finger pointing to her chest. She can see the rage clearer now – it is uninhibited, and focused. Sansa _knows_ these eyes, and she can feel fear crawl through her veins like a posion. “How _dare_ you think to say such things-“

“Your grace.” Cersei’s voice is low as she tries to intervene, but Joffrey has been passed his mothers hand for years now.

Joffrey grabs her by the neck, and pulls her up. Sansa knows the eyes of the ladies of the court are on her, and she hopes they see him for what he really is. For all the times they had heard her screaming, and did nothing but smiled. For all the times they would see her bruises, and speak only of the courts scandal. For all the times she had needed friends, and they had abandoned her.

_See what your King does to his Queen,_ she thinks, _and see what you have let him do._

“I will have your HEAD!” His spit hits her cheek, and Sansa tells herself to not cry, or scream. She has gotten awfully good at biting her tongue. But she knows she cannot bite her tongue – not when this situation can be diffused so easily.

“You will have nothing of mine,” Sansa says, watching as his eyes cloud with a storm. _There it is,_ Sansa thinks, recalling all the times he had looked at her like that. _Hungry._ She has seen the anger within him so many times that she knows it is not simply rage – it is lust, and chaos, melting together in a hurricane of acrimony.

It does not take but a second for his hand to be in her hair, and for him to begin pulling her from the room. _He has always loved my hair,_ Sansa thinks, trying to ignore the pain that is spreading through her scalp and clouding he mind. For all that Sansa knows, what she knows most of all is that pain will rob you of any thought, and will blind you of every sense in your body. _Pain is the strongest weapon man has to use, and he uses it._

Some ladies let out screams as Joffrey pulls her from the room. She trips over her own feet within a second, and he is then dragging her on the stones. Tears slide down her face as the pain becomes too much. His steel capped boot hits her in the rib then, and she cannot help the scream that escapes her.

The Kingsgaurd do not follow – Sansa knows they will come later. It is as it always has been; they will ignore what their King does to his Queen, and all will be well.

But tonight, it would be different.

With every step, he is getting angrier – the rage within him is as vibrant as the dragon’s fire, and nothing can quell it now. Like every time before, Sansa wonders if he will be like last time, and she knows she needn’t think about it. Every time is the same – every time is hard, rough, and painful, and nothing will change.

Joffrey is steadfast; predictable in his anger, and inconsistency. Sansa knows why his own mother fears him – she knows what they all see, when they look to the King. They see a man driven by his madness, whilst Sansa sees nothing but a man whose anger is like rain; it comes, and it goes, and then it _thunders._

They are at her room in an instant, and Sansa tastes the furs of her bed as she is slammed down.

“You fucking whore,” Joffrey sneers, closing the door to her bedchamber as he strips himself of his belt.

Placing the sword beside the bed, he unlaces himself. He is hard, but Sansa already knew he would be. It is the same, as it always is. And yet it is so excruciatingly different that Sansa wonders if she can truly do it – if she can really do as she has been planning.

He flips her over, before he rips at her bodice, lifting her skirts. “I want to look at you when I fuck you.”

Sansa is pulled to the end of the bed, and her legs are pushed apart. His fingers are there, probing and prodding within seconds, and she can do nothing.

_One slip._

“You ugly traitorous bitch,” He snarls, as he leans over and thrusts inside of her.

_One slip._

His hands are at either side of her, and he begins to violently thrust.

Sansa Stark knows Joffrey Baratheon.

_One slip._

The dagger comes from her iron belt. It unsheathes as she pulls it out, before she slashes upward, slicing open his neck.

Blood spills from his neck onto her chest. His eyes go wide and a sputtering of gasps come from his lips. Sansa gasps as the blood splatters onto her face, and she pushes him out of her. He falls to the floor, holding his gaping neck and gurgling his pain.

_Ice, Ice, Ice._

Her father’s great sword is heavy in her hands as she unsheathes it. Her husband is bleeding, his blood polling at his feet as he screams. But she must have cut something, for his voice is gone and his words are choked.

_Now._

She cuts into his shoulder, at first. The cut is deep, and more blood comes. _You need to kill him. You need to kill him._

He turns then, and suddenly his green eyes are looking at her, raging with an uncontrollable anger. Sansa backs up, her old fears consuming her as she sees the man who torments her.

_He is not in control._

She swings the sword again, but this time it slices into his torso. She keeps swining, again and again, until she is hacking at his neck.

But he will not die.

His gurgles are screams, and with every gurgle, and thrash she knows she is running out of time. The Kingsgaurd would be at the door within minutes, for they usually five the King around five minutes before they go to the door. _No, no, no._

_I have to finish it._

And so she does.

Every hack of her father’s sword at Joffreys neck is every time he has hit her. Every gasp, and cry that comes from his mouth is every time he has raped her. And when the blood, which is so vast and profuse that the stone has become a river of scarlet, pours from him in waves, she thinks of the blood that she has lost.

And she hates him.

She hates that she was forced to walk an aisle, and wear his cloak. She hates every moment she has spent calling him her love. She hates every time he has been inside her, and taken all of her. She hates that he has claimed every part of her. She hates that her body is but a canvas of his anger. She hates that she knows nothing but his touch, and gods, she hates him. She hates him so much she would rather burn than hear his voice. She wishes she could see death, as it claims him. She wishes she can kill him, a thousand more times, but she cannot.

She hacks, and hacks, and hacks, before his head comes off completely off.

He is dead.

“He is dead.”

Her fingers shake.

Her lips quiver.

She can barely see.

_He is dead._

Blood seeps through her shoes.

_He is dead._

Blood trickles down her legs.

_He is dead._

Pain shoots through her scalp.

_He is dead._

She touches her face, only for blood to taint her skin.

_He is dead._

_He is dead._

_He is dead._

Her husband lies before her, headless and mutilated, and she has killed him. Sansa blinks, and wonders if she should be sick. She knows such a sight should make her sick, but she doesn’t.

_He is dead._

She cannot stop shaking.

“Joanna,” Sansa croaks.

She must go to her.

And so she runs.

 

* * *

 

“Where is your husband?”

Sansa is still shaking.

“Mama?”

She swallows, and looks to the blood that stains her skin. She remembers the sight of him, and she feels her stomach roll, but she cannot allow herself to be weak now. Not when they are here, before her, and it has taken so long.

“I killed him,” Sansa says, but she cannot stop her breath from coming out too fast. _Joanna is here, she cannot hear this._ “I- he was- he is dead.”

The white Queen narrows her eyes, but the man at her side steps forward, into the light of the moon.

“Sansa?”

Sansa looks to him, and sways.

_He’s here._

_He’s real._

“Papa?”

The man that stands before her shakes his head, before stepping forward again, allowing her to truly look at him. It is lie something from a dream; vivid, and yet his face is covered in a cloud of confusion. He is in Northern garb, and he wears a wolf on his chest, but he is not her father. Her father did not have such dark hair, and her fathers face was older - sadder, perhaps. But it is his eyes that catch Sansa’s.

_Grey._

These are Arya's eyes. These are her Fathers eyes.

She knows this man. Sansa has always known this man.

“Jon Snow.”

The world spins, and Sansa sees her father as she falls.

_It is over, Father._


	6. From Queen to widow

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this took a little longer than expected! Had a MASSIVE weekend, and then have had work, so was not able to finish this when I wanted to. I'd say expect a chapter on average every three days, however it could be later or it could be earlier. Hope you enjoy!

She falls as a Queen, and wakes up as a widow.

“The King is dead.”

They are the first words she says, when she wakes.

It is not in her room. It is the first thing she notices. It is a dark room, and it takes just a moment for Sansa to realise that she knows this room.  _ The Hand of the King,  _ she thinks, looking around the room she had slept in when she was but a girl. She wonders, briefly, if it is all real. She wonders if the crown ever rested on her head, and if her father was ever killed. She wonders if it has all been but a dream, a conjuring of sorrow and pain.

Sansa looks down, and sees grown breasts. She is no child, and this is no dream.

And then it comes back to her.

All of it.

“Joanna,” Sansa whispers, looking for her.  _ She’s not here. She’s not here. She’s not here _ . “Joanna?”

Silence.

Sansa pushes the furs off her, and her feet hit the cold stone. It is freezing. Sansa pushes open the door, her heart hammering in her chest as thousands of scenarios consume her. Her babe was the one thing she could not let go of, and suddenly she is without her. She could be hurt, or scared, or … dead.

Panic is a tsunami that consumes her. She can barely see; she can barely breathe. It feels like something is sitting on Sansa’s chest – a weight that is pushing air out of her lungs, and suffocating her.

Sansa thinks of all the times she had imagined the surrender. She was to state her name, and then surrender the city. She was not supposed to faint at the sign of Jon.

_ Jon. _

Her mind is so full that it is throbbing against the back of her skull. Every moment she runs through the hall, another memory comes to her. With every step, she remembers what happened. Sansa remembers the sound Joffrey made when his sword cut into him. Sansa remembers the song she sung to Joanna. Sansa remembers the sight of Jon, whose eyes looked too disbelieving and whose hands reached out like she was a ghost, unsure of her realness.

Her mind is falling into an abyss of pain, and she cannot keep her thoughts form being consumed by the vileness of her imagination. What if they have taken her daughter? What if they have killed her daughter?

Sansa imagines Joanna then, with a slit across her neck and empty eyes.

She presses her hand against the stone of the wall as she heaves, vomiting what was left in her stomach. The fear has become so overwhelming that every ounce of her repels it. Her stomach quivers with every breath, and she knows she is crying then – crying for all that had happened, and crying for all that may happen.

Sansa has lost the world – she cannot lose her mind, as well.

“Joanna!?!” Sansa calls, running down the stairs. “Joanna!?”

Her voice is mangled by the tightness of her throat, and her sobs. But she knows she cannot weep now – not when she does not have Joanna in her arms.  _ I can cry when I find her. _

Her feet are stinging. The stones are so cold that the skin on her soles feels like it is peeling away with every step. As she gets to the end of the stairs, Sansa goes to the nearest window that looks over the city. She does not know what she expects, but the sight of Kings Landing – this city that has been her prison for so long – intact sends her stumbling.

Smoke comes from beyond the walls, but the city is completely intact save for the barracks.  _ They were not burned,  _ Sansa thinks, relief coursing through her as she realises that everyone she knows, every child she has passed and every man and woman she has been Queen to may be safe.

But relief is soon spoiled by the panic that woke her.

_ Joanna. _

She is running again, her eyes going from room to room. Maegors is essentially empty, and with every step Sansa wonders once again if this is a dream.  _ Maybe I have gone mad,  _ Sansa thinks, before she rounds a corner and slams into a body.

“Ugh.”

The voice is foreign, and so is their armour. Brown leather, and brown skin meet her eyes, before she looks to the man’s face. He is so large that Sansa trembles just at the sight of him.  _ Run. _

She turns on her heel, and sprints.

“Nakho,” The man calls, his voice gruff and terrifying.

Sansa glances over her shoulder to see him running after her, his beard long and his braid even longer.  _ Don’t stop. You know Maegors better than him. This is your Keep. _

Sansa sprints in the direction of the Kings chambers, knowing she can get there quicker than he can. She has walked these halls for nearly five years – she knows this place, deeper than she knows anything else. And she knows that her husband’s room will provide her with some safety.

“NAKHO!”

Sansa slams into the door, pushing it open.

And is met with aliens.

“What …” She pants, pushing her red hair from her face.

Daenerys Targaryen stands at a table, in a gown of silver and with bells in her hair. She is beautiful, Sansa can see, but Sansa cares not for beauty. She knows beauty, and it is nothing but an empty mask, that fades with time.

They are standing at Joffrey’s round table, with war pieces and scrolls of parchment cover the stone surface. Sansa can hear herself panting, her panic causing her fingers to tremble with fear as she thinks of her father.  _ I do not want to lose my head,  _ she thinks,  _ I cannot die, not now. Not after everything. _

Her eyes go from man to man, frantic. She does not recognise any of them, all in armour with three headed dragons engraved into the metal. Sansa’s eyes go from man to man, from Daenerys to the other man that looked like a dragon. Silver hair, violet eyes, and a fire burning within him that felt scalding.

But there are two she does know.

Ser Barristan Selmy stands at the end of the table, and when she sees him, Sansa has to blink. She has never thought about what happened after her husband had banished him, and something within her curls uncomfortably. She has never thought of him, and yet here he is, alive.

And then there is a man that she thought dead.

That she was told was dead.

“Sansa,” Jon breathes, his eyes as bright as a summers sun and she cannot stomach it. He is taller than she recalls, but it has been so long that she does not begrudge him the changes. His hair has grown longer too – now hanging to his chin where a fierce beard grows.  _ He is a man,  _ she thinks,  _ and no longer a lanky boy.  _ But it is not the dragon on his chest that she stills at, or the scars on his face, but the grey of his eyes that she never wants to look away from.

_ I have not seen that colour in five years,  _ she thinks,  _ and I never wish to part from it again. _

“You're awake,” The white Queen says, her drawl low, “your grace.”

Sansa’s eyebrows furrow at the title. Surely she is not Queen still?

“I-“

Sansa looks down, trying to steady her breathing. Her panic is so visceral that all she can hear is her heart, pounding in her ears over and over again. It is then she realises what she must look like. She is in nothing but her night shift, and her hair, a river of red curls barely even covers her modesty.

_ I have gone from a Queen, to a joke. _

“My daughter …” Sansa croaks, her eyes desperately looking over the room.  _ Where is she, where is she? _

“Mama?”

Her heart stops, and she can feel herself begin to unravel. Sansa’s eyes are frantic as they search for Joanna, their need to see just a hint of her daughter’s wild raven curls.

The moment Sansa sees her daughter, running towards her with a vigour, Sansa falls to her knees and opens her arms. Her small body folds into hers, and Sansa has never felt so much euphoria. Relief rushes through her, vein by vein, as she hugs Joanna – her scent burning her nose as her curls fill Sansa’s vision.

She cannot help but cry, then. Sansa does not want to weep before her captors, but she cannot stop the tears from coating her cheeks. Joanna’s hands dig into her back as she clutches hold of her mother, and Sansa wonders what would it be if she wasn’t seeing Joanna.

_ They could have killed her. _

Sansa presses her lips to her daughter’s temple, inhaling her scent once more.  _ Roses and winter, as it always as been. _

“My little wolf,” Sansa whispers, squeezing her babe before she remembers that there are eyes on them.  _ There are always eyes watching. _ “Are you okay, my sweet?”

Joanna nods, yet Sansa cannot stop, lowering her voice as she says, “Have these people been nice?”

Joanna nods yet again, and Sansa is filled with relief. Sansa presses another kiss to her daughter’s head, before she stands, hiking her daughter onto her hip and facing the eyes that she knows are watching them.

“She has been fed, and has been slept,” The white Queen says, a small smile on her face as she stares at Joanna. “Do not fret, my lady – I do not harm children.”

Sansa nods, inhaling sharply. “I thank you … your grace.”

Daenerys appraises Sansa with a long look, before she looks down at her table. “We have much to discuss, my Lady.”

“Mayhaps we shall call a Septa …?” A man asks, and Sansa steps back, tightening her hold on her daughter.

“No.” The word tumbles from her lips, too fast to withhold. Surprise litters the faces of the invaders before her, but Sansa will not buckle. For all she will do as they say, and comply, she will no allow them to take her babe – not again.

“My Lady …” The man begins, his accent tilting as he takes another step forward. Sansa truly looks at him then, and realises quickly that she knows him. He had, after all, attended Tommen’s wedding.

“Prince Oberyn,” Sansa says, stepping back. “I thank you for the suggestion, but I cannot allow my daughter to be separated from me. I need to know she is safe.”

“We would not do anything so foul a to harm a child!” One of them says, outraged.

Sansa purses her lips, rubbing Joanna’s back as she claims Oberyn’s eyes.  _ Do not be afraid,  _ Sansa tells herself, _you were his Queen before he was your captor._ “You, of all people, my lord, should understand my reluctance.”

Pain flickers onto Oberyn’s features, but it is not he that responds.

It is Jon.

“Sansa,” He says, his thick brows furrowing as he steps forward. “We would never do anything to harm Joanna. I would not allow it-“

Sansa cannot hold her composure then – a crack forming. The sight of him, too famriliar and yet so foreign, sends her into a stream of confusion and anger. She can still remember the day her husband had told her of the Lord Commanders death – he had taunted her, about the death of her base born brother but Sansa had not given him so much as a flinch.

That night, when she had been free from Joffrey’s stare, Sansa had wept – so filled with anger, and sorrow that the brother she had barely known was too gone. The bastard that she had once sneered at for being not being a Stark had found the same fate as many of her siblings, and parents, and for all her words over his name, it mattered not when the Stranger came to collect his due.

She had imagined him, bleeding and bloodied, in a Northern snow.  _ Murdered by his own men,  _ she can recall thinking, before she had wretched.  _ Is honour so gone that loyalty is extinct?  _ She will admit, that she had never truly thought of Jon as a true brother – not like Robb, or Bran, or Rickon, and yet she had grieved for him just as she had grieved for Robb. She remembers she had thought it odd, to grieve as she did but mayhaps it was not a brother she grieved for, but the thought of a man that looked like her Lord father.

The news of Jon Snows death had meant that the rest of her family were dead. Arya was gone, lost within the streets of Kings Landing. Sansa will admit that she had never paid Jon Snow much thought before that day when Joffrey told her of his demise, and yet the news of his death meant something.  _ It means I am the only one left,  _ she could recall thinking.

And yet here he is, standing before her.

Sansa holds up her hand, halting his words. “I … I was told you were dead.”

Jon opens his mouth to speak, before Daenerys speaks, “We have other things to discuss, my Lady. Mayhaps you can break your fast in your room, and then afterwards you can have a formal meeting with the small council.”

“A formal meeting?” Sansa echoes, cocking a brow. She wants to tell Daenerys that she is not a simple courtier – she was the Queen. And yet she cannot, for as much as she once wore a crown of rubies, the crown fell from her head the moment she cut into Joffrey Lannister.

“Yes,” Daenerys says, returning her eyes to the table.

“Your Grace,” Jon says, “might I not speak to-“

“The Dowager Queen must break her fast, Prince Jon,” Daenerys says, smiling. “And then we shall all talk.”

_ Prince Jon? _

Sansa eyes are wide as she stares at the man that was once her brother – analysing him. Sansa wonders, for a brief moment, if mayhaps this man in front of her is wearing her bastard brothers skin, for Jon Snow is no Prince.  _ Mayhaps he is Daenerys consort,  _ a voice whispers,  _ mayhaps Joffrey lied. _

“Yes,” Sansa agrees, for she can feel Joanna’s eyes on her. “I shall break my fast, and then we shall talk.”

 

* * *

 

“Did they hurt you?”

It is the first question Sansa asks once they have been escorted to her room. Sansa grabs hold of Joanna’s face, her eyes holding her daughters as she tries to determine the truth. Joanna seems intimidated by her mother’s stare, and Sansa knows it must be so strange, but her stomach is twisting so violently, and her mind is conjuring so many atrocities that she must know if they have harmed her.

For if they have harmed Sansa’s daughter, no storm will compare to her wrath. There is a reason nature is named after a mother; for only a mother’s fury could be as vicious as the perils of nature.

“No, Mama,” Joanna says, shrinking beneath her mother’s eyes.

“Are you sure?” Sansa demands, panicked. “You must tell Mama the truth otherwise I shall be very crossed. Did they hurt you, or say anything mean?”

“No,” Joanna says, biting her trembling bottom lip.

Sansa’s resolve breaks, and she bundles her babe in her arms, “Shh, shh, my love, I am sorry. Mama is just … scared.”

“Why?” She cries.

Sansa cannot truly answer, for her babe is too young.  _ She is a week shy of three, and I cannot scare her.  _ “Because Mama wants to be sure that my little wolf is safe. Is that okay?”

Joanna’s eyes are wide as she nods. “Yes, Mama.”

“Thank you, my sweetheart,” Sansa whispers, pressing another kiss to her head. “Thank you.”

They are silent, as the handmaiden draws a bath.

“Mama?” Joanna asks.

“Yes?”

“Where is Papa?”

Sansa’s mind fills full of memories of her husband. Beautiful Joffrey, without a head.  _ There was so much blood,  _ Sansa thinks, trying to stop herself from trembling at just the thought of what she had done. And then a thought comes to her – a thought so intrusive, and cruel that Sansa wants to weep.  _ Joffrey took my father from me,  _ she thinks, _ and I have taken Joanna’s from her. _

Sansa wonders if she should lie, to keep her daughters mind from truth. But she cannot lie, not when the eyes of her mother are staring up at her, and the sight of her Starkness is so vibrant that it overwhelms her.  _ My daughter is more Stark than even I,  _ she thinks,  _ and yet her father was a Lannister twice over, and I am nothing that a Stark should be. _

The truth is an ugly thing. It is thick, and hard to get out of her throat – a ball of uneasiness, and guilt, and shame that Sansa cannot shed. But she knows she must, and so despite all that she wants to keep from her babe, her beautiful, blue eyed babe, she clears her throat and tells the truth.

_ I cannot let Joanna live with lies,  _ Sansa determines then,  _ I have lived with lies for so long that it’s poison has scarred my skin. _

“Remember the story Mama has told you?” Sansa asks. “Of Grandfather Ned?”

Joanna’s brows furrow, a crease forming between them. “No.”

“Oh,” Sansa says, before she tightens her hold on Joanna and pushes her curls from her forehead. “Well, when I was a little younger, someone told lies about my Papa, and that meant that he had to go and live where the Gods live.”

“Why?” She asks, confused.

“Because he died,” Sansa says softly. “We all do, at some point. And so when we die, we go and live with the Gods in the sky.”

Joanna mulls over her answer, before she cocks her head and says, “Oh.”

Sansa nods. “And so Papa has gone to live with the Gods, my wolf.”

“Why?” Her head shoots up, and her eyes hold worry.

“Because Papa … because the Gods decided Papa must come and live with them,” Sansa says.

“But I don’t want him to live there,” Joanna says, anger crossing her face. “Can he come back?”

Sansa bites her lip, and shakes her head. “No.”

Joanna looks down, but asks no more questions. Sansa is grateful, for she doesn’t know if she can answer any more questions. Her daughter is everything that she has ever wanted – a salvation in a place of darkness, and yet now, she doesn’t know what to say to her blue-eyed babe. How could she explain, that monsters are real and that one fathered her? How could she explain that grief was not needed, when grieving for a monster?

She couldn’t say any of these things, for they would be lies, after all. Joffrey was as much of a monster to Joanna as Sansa was. He had never raised his voice when speaking to Joanna, and had always exercised restraint. Joanna’s ‘Papa’ was fiercely different to Sansa’s husband, and she had been so grateful, at the time. Grateful that Joanna did not fear the man who fathered her – grateful that they could all pretend, for just a little while, that violence was not romance and marriage was not war.

Water drips into the bath, and silence becomes their friend. Joanna bathes, and splashes in the water, and Sansa is the one that sits beside the tub. She has not bathed her daughter, ever, for Queens did not do such things. Cersei barely let Sansa feed Joanna from her own breast, for Queens did not do such things.

_ But I am no Queen now. _

 

* * *

 

 

“You killed the King.”

“Yes,” Sansa says, her eyes unmoving from the white Queen. Daenerys Targaryen sits silent, staring at Sansa with her piercing, purple eyes.  _ She is a cold woman _ , Sansa decides, for there is no smile or pretence with her. It is not necessarily bad, Sansa thinks, to have someone be truthful in their distrust and distaste, but to Sansa, who has drowned in the sights of falsities and lies, it is something different.

“Why?” The silver haired man asks, and Sansa blinks away from the Queen to stare at him – the man who looks so like her.

“Who are you?” Sansa asks, blunt.

“This is Prince Aegon, the Prince of Dragonstone,” The man beside him barks, gruffly.

Sansa’s eyes narrow. “Prince Aegon is dead.”

“I assure you, my lady,” The man says, “he is not.”

Sansa closes her eyes, and inhales deeply.  _ Patience, Sansa. Patience.  _ “And who are you, my Lord?”

“I am Ser Jon Connington.”

Connington. Sansa has heard that name before. She racks her mind, before she remembers – the name once mentioned by her Septa when discussing the downfall of King Aerys. “You were Hand of the King.”

“And you know your history, my lady,” Ser Jon says, his tone dismissive.

“I was Queen of Westeros, Ser,” Sansa says, her tone cool and her expression cooler. “I am no fool, despite what people like to whisper.”

Silence falls over the table, with the only sound echoing through the room being Joanna’s steady breaths on Sansa’s chest. Joanna is lost to the world in her sleep, and Sansa is thankful that she asleep for this conversation.

“How did the King die?” ‘Prince Aegon’ asks, ignoring the interaction.

Jon is watching her, his eyes burning into her side as she tries to avoid them. His stare is so intense, is so curious, is so filled with  _ too  _ much that she cannot bare to meet his eyes.  _ If I look at him, I will unravel. And I cannot afford to be weak. _

Sansa looks to Joanna, who is content in her unconsciousness, before she remembers.  _ Blood.  _ Sansa blinks.  _ Hacking.  _ She clears her throat.  _ More blood.   _ “The King was not a kind man. He was … he killed my father.”

Jon looks down, when Sansa glances to him.

She continues, “After he killed my father, he would often to take to beating me when my brother, Robb, would win victories against his grandfather’s men. When we married, nothing changed.”

“Nothing changed?” Prince Aegon asks, his eyes narrowing. “Elaborate.”

Sansa’s jaw locks in anger, and humiliation as Prince Aegon words echo through the room. Her hands finger Joanna’s hair, and she begins to play with it, as she often does when she is nervous.  _ What do they want me to say,  _ Sansa wonders,  _ do they wish for me to tell them all the details of my marriage? The beatings, the blood, the rape? The grief, the hatred, the monstrous manipulation? Do they wish to hear it all? _

“What do you think the man who killed children did to his wife behind the doors of his Keep?” Sansa asks, glaring into the eyes of the supposed Prince Aegon.

“I do not know, my lady,” Prince Aegon responds, bored. “What did he do?”

Sansa’s hands clench as her eyes narrow, and she sighs. “Okay then,” Sansa says, sighing. “I’ll tell you all what my husband did to me. What do you wish to hear first?”

“Anyth-“ Prince Aegon begins, so Sansa cuts him off.

“Okay,” She nods once more. “The first time he raped me was on our wedding night. For all that King Joffrey liked to beat me, and strip me in front of the court, or even show me my father’s head on a spike, he was honourable enough to wait until our bedding on our wedding night. How long have you been beaten for, Prince Aegon?”

“I don’t know,” Prince Aegon shrugs. “I do not keep track.”

“What about you, Ser Barristan?” Sansa moves onto the man that sits beside the Queen. “You are a soldier – a decorated knight. My father said you were an honourable man – a good warrior. How long have you battled before?”

“I have been in many battles, my lady,” Ser Barristan says, shifting beneath her glare.

“The King raped me for eleven and a half hours,” Sansa says, her eyes returning to Prince Aegon. “And my husband grew bored easily, my lord. It is why many of my scars are from blades, and not his own hand.”

Prince Aegon looks to the parchment before him, clearing his throat. “So you killed him because he was cruel?”

“I killed him because he would have killed us,” Sansa says, remembering the words she had thought up. “Joffrey would have never surrendered, and I … my daughter is barely three. I could not let him hurt her.”

“Did anyone help you?” Ser Barristan asks. “It would have taken such strength to completely-“

“I am a Stark,” Sansa snaps, growing tired of the distrust and disbelief. “I decided Joffrey was to die, and so I killed him. I do not hire the Stranger to do my bidding.”

The table falls quiet, before he speaks. “You sound like your father.”

Sansa’s head snaps up, and she looks to Jon. Her eyebrows furrow as she stares at him, and as soon as their eyes meet, Jon holds hers, victorious that she has finally acknowledged him. There is still so many questions that Sansa needs to ask – so many lies, and so many whispers – that she can barely focus on what she needs to tell them, and what she needs to find out.  _ I cannot focus on Jon now,  _ she thinks,  _ I shall speak to him when I have secured my position. _

But then, as she stares at him, Sansa can feel something brewing deep within her. It is a mix of things, but there is an overwhelming poison brewing within the depths of her stomach. Sansa feels betrayed – betrayed that Jon, the man who looks so Stark and who has the eyes of her father, sits on the other side and she is left alone, to fend for herself against those that wish for her blood. 

Sansa had always imagined what it would be, to have another Stark in Kings landing.  _ It wouldn’t be so lonely,  _ she had once thought, but now, as she sits on the other side of their table, Sansa realises it is just as lonely as it has always been. For all that he could have been an ally, Sansa was still alone – a wolf without her pack against dragons whose hunger is bigger than their bodies.

“My Queen,” Sansa says, bringing her eyes to Daenerys. “I shall support you, as your loyal and humble servant. I will acknowledge your legitimacy on the throne, and I will gladly surrender the throne on behalf of my husband publically. I am no enemy, of yours, your grace – I have fought for years, quietly and slowly, but I have fought. I was only ten and three when my father was killed, and when I was married.”

Sansa takes a moment, before she looks to her daughter. “Joanna is just a child. I beg of you to not punish my child for her fathers crimes – to allow us both to return North, and to wear the name Stark. I am after all the heir to the North, I-“

“The North belongs to the Boltens,” Prince Aegon snaps. “Not the Starks.”

Sansa wishes for his head, then, before she recites patience. _I cannot lose myself to fury, for if I lose myself to fury I am nothing but another Cersei Lannister - ruled by madness, and driven by abandoned restraint._  “Roose Bolten stabbed my brother in the heart, and then took my Keep, and my lands. The North knows no leader but the Starks, and if you shall not help return it to me, I shall do it by myself.”

Aegon laughs. “Who says you are even leaving this city?”

Sansa pales, her worst nightmares voiced. But she cannot cry, or scream, or quiver, as they would want her to. No, she would act as she had always acted – cool, and calm. “You may sit on the Iron Throne, my lady, and you may have won it, but it is easy to sit on a chair but much hard to rule a country that does not love you.”

“And did they love your husband?” Connington asks, and Sansa narrows her eyes.

“I do not believe so,” Sansa ponders. “But they love Tommen, and they love me.”

“And your daughter,” Daenerys finally speaks, her violet eyes looking down at Joanna. “I will gladly accept your allegiance, my lady. But your daughter is … well, she is the heir to a man I have usurped.”

Sansa’s heart quickens, and her hands begin to tremble. “She is … three, your grace. She is a child. I- i-“

“Do not worry, my lady.” Daenerys smiles. “I have no intention to do as Robert Baratheon did, but you must realise that a former Princess cannot live in my Kingdom as legitimate. We will have to give her the name Waters, as we will give her father-“

“You plan to bastardize my daughter?” Sansa stands, pulling Joanna with her as her eyes blaze. Anger uncoils from her chest, and spits, violent in it’s stance. “I stood in the Sept of Baelor, and had that  _ monster  _ drape his Baratheon cloak over my shoulders. I have taken beatings, I have been bitten my tongue, I killed the King for  _ your crown  _ and my daughter is to bastardized?”

“Would you rather I take her life?” Daenerys was dry as she stared at Sansa, standing slowly. “Robert Baratheon chased my brother and I from this land, the land that I was entitled to inherit, and made us live like beggars. Your child is a child of a bastard who should wear the name Waters as is appropriate.”

_ I am made of stone. I am unbendable. _

“My child is no bastard,” Sansa says. “She is-“

“- a Stark,” Jon speaks, standing as well. “Dany, Joanna is a Stark just as I am Targaryen.”

Sansa’s head snaps up, shocked at Jon's words. 

“Should she not be awarded the name?” Jon asks. “She has been stripped of her title, and the name Baratheon – legitimise her as a Stark, and name her Sansa’s heir. They shall return North, and only come to the Capital when summoned. They shall be compliant, and humble subjects.”

Daenerys purses her lips. “No-“

Jon’s expression darkens, and he steps towards her, leaning down to whisper something in her ear. Sansa watches as somethings changes on the Queens face, before she sighs and nods, complying to whatever Jon had said to her.

Sansa does not understand much, about why he is here. And yet his presence is so jarring that everything she thought she would know seems questionable. Sansa wants to shake him, and ask why he is here, and who he truly is. But there is a part of her, hidden deep within her, that wonders why he is with them, and why he never came for her. 

_ Robb never came for me. Mother never came for me. Jon never came for me.  _

For all the promises of rescue, Sansa was left in Kings Landing like a forgotten thought, rotting in their lost recollections. Sansa could still recall, how she felt when she heard that Robb had married.  _Robb has married a girl from the Westerlands,_ she had thought,  _and yet he has no words for me. He can find time to marry a girl he is not suited for, and yet I am alone, with my skin covered in the bruises of his victories._

“I shall decide if your child shall wear the name Stark,” Daenerys says, before she folds her arms and narrows her eyes. “Until then, you shall be confined to your room. We shall determine the details of your name, and of your rights, but until then you shall be known as the Queen Dowager and shall be afforded the respect that comes with such a title.”

Sansa purses her lips. Titles? They think she cared for titles?  _ I am to be caged once more,  _ she thinks,  _ but this time they will ask me to sing them a different tune. _

“Thank you, your grace,” She says, holding Joanna tightly as she dips into a low curtsy. Daenerys eyes are shining with something akin to pride. “I do, have one question.”

Daenerys cocks a brow. “Yes?”

“What are the Lannister’s?” 


	7. No Strings. No Wings.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this took FOREVER. Been through a bunch of stuff in the last three weeks. Apologies. Hope to be more regular, but you never know with me (i never know with me). This chapter was also really hard to write for some reason so I did the best I could with really bad writers block!

_ They are to die. _

Four words were all she could hear.

_ They are to die. _

Sansa knows not how to respond, so she does not.

She simply returns to her chambers, and stares at the stone. Joanna sleeps peacefully, and Sansa wonders if she shall ever be able to do the same.

_ They are to die. _

Something twists within her as the words consume her mind once more, reverberating through her psyche like an echo. Sansa knows she should feel something akin to relief; she knows that the thought of her captors being killed should delight her, and yet she cannot bring herself to feel delight.

_ I did not even delight in the death of the man who hands bruised my flesh,  _ she thinks as she stares beyond the coloured glass of her window.

Tyrion’s face consumes her mind then, and her breath fractures.

_ We are the godless two,  _ he had joked with wine in his hands and a smile on his mutilated lips, and yet Sansa can now only find the cruel irony in his words. For all that they were godless, it seemed that the Stranger did not leave them alone – death is beckoning for their names, with his hands tightening around the strings in which he pulls.

Sansa can almost feel them; the strings. They are attached by sharp hooks in her back, pulling at her skin so much that sometimes she can almost feel the slightest touch. It would be easy, to say there were hooks in her skin and her every action was puppeteered. But that was not the truth; she was not simply a puppet, created for someone else's game, nor was she the dove they called her. 

She has no strings. She has no wings. She has no master. 

At least, she thought she would be. 

Her father once told her that when she was grown, he would make a match for her.

A kind man.

A gentle man.

It is easy to make promises, when tomorrow is there. But when tomorrow came, and took his head with it, every promise was gone and Sansa was left with an unbroken betrothal, and a King whose kindness stretched as far as her chains.

Tomorrow once held wonder, and beauty. Tomorrow once meant a crown, and a prince, and summer songs, and golden haired babes. 

That tomorrow is gone.

It has been, for many years now.

_ I want to be her again,  _ Sansa thinks, as she remembers the small girl she had once been.  _ I want to become excited for dresses of fine silk, and for gleaming jewels. I want to be reprimanded for my vanity, but a mother who still breathes. I want to know what it is like, to be as I once was; untouched, and unbruised. I want to live in the past, where ghosts live and I am with them. _

But Winterfell is miles away – buried in snow, and with a flayed sigil flying above the Keep. And her family is all gone.

“Not all.”

His voice is not welcome now.

Sansa squeezes her eyes shut, wanting him to be gone. She does not want him to see her now. Really, she does not want to see him at all. If anything, he is just simply another sign of her madness. 

“Go away,” Sansa weeps, trying to keep her voice quiet. Joanna sleeps on the bed, the steady rise and fall of her chest a comfort to Sansa. “I do not want you here.”

“You never seem too.”

“I do not want to see you,” She snaps, glancing behind her to where he stands. She is in the solar beside the bedchambers, overlooking the city she has come to know.

“Why?”

_ Because your promise meant my pain, and I have known nothing but pain since your promise. _

“Because I did as you said,” Sansa finally says. “I killed him. I spoke to them. I did exactly as you wanted, and it was not enough.”

“How?”

“You would have seen it,” Sansa says, exasperated. She turns to look at him, and as always, he seems sad. Melancholy is his mask, and Sansa hates looking at him.  _ He is not truly my father. He is simply a ghost.  _ “Your bastard looks like you.”

“He is a Stark.”

Sansa eyes close. “Did you love her?”

“Who?”

Sansa thinks of Ashara Dayne then, and realises she has not thought of her in days.

_ Ashara Dayne leapt from her window into the sea because her babe did not cry. _

“His mother?”

Her father’s breath fractures. It is almost a whisper when he says, “Very much.”

“I used to hate him,” Sansa says, a laugh in her voice. It seems ridiculous now, to think of something so trivial as hating Jon Snow. “For Mother did, and I loved Mother. So I hated him for her. I cursed his presence, and complained loudly every time he was near.”

“I remember.”

Sansa’s chest tightens. “And you let me. Both of you did. You let me say things, horrible things, to a child.”

“You were but a child, my love,” Her father says, his voice calm. “And your mother did not hate him.”

“You are too kind to her in death,” Sansa snarls, turning to face him. “She hated him. She hated that you loved another woman – that you shamed her.”

Her father’s eyes shine with disappointment. “Your mother did not need to love Jon Snow. He was not hers to love.”

“Do you think that is why she died?” Sansa asks. “Do think that is why our family has suffered?”

“Your mother died because she was betrayed. Your mother died because your brother married a woman he shouldn’t have. Your mother died because I died. Your mother died because Cersei Lannister has too many secrets-“

“Tell me, Papa,” Sansa muses, “when you died, was it Ashara’s name you whispered or was it Mama’s?”

Her father is silent for a long while, before he finally says, “I never loved Ashara Dayne.”

“I thought about her often, you know?” Sansa murmurs. “But I did not think about her babe, or about you with her. I only thought about the way she leapt from her window, and into the sea, and how very much I wish I could do the same.”

“Sansa …”

Sansa turns away from him, then.

“You left me here,” Sansa spits, her fingers trembling, “in this crumbling castle built on the bones of dragons. You left me here, because you were honourable and I cannot hate you for it, despite how much I wish I could. I cannot dare hate you for leaving me to these beatings, and to every time he would come for me. I cannot hate Mother either, for never coming for me, or Robb, even though I can feel it. I cannot hate any of you, despite how much I want to, for you all are dead and how I can ever hate a corpse?”

His hand wraps around her shoulder, and he pulls her to him. His jerkin smells as it always had; worn northern leather, and fresh fallen snow. Her cheeks are wet, and her lips taste the salt of her falling tears as she continues to whisper, “I have battled more than any soldier for my place, and for my crown, and I was left here to rot by everyone who ever loved me. And now … now the bastard I once tormented is the only one who has come for me. Not my fair Mother, or my strong brother, but the bastard I hated purely for his name.”

Her father remains silent.

“Winter is coming,” Sansa quotes, inhaling her fathers scent one last time before she pushes him away, “and yet no Stark has come for me.”

_ My father is a mirage; a mirror of my memories. _

_ My father is a corpse; his bones lost, and his blood dry. _

_ I wear the skin of a ghost, disguised as the girl I once was.  _

_ Like him, I am a ghost.  _

“You are not my father,” Sansa whispers, shutting her eyes and willing him away. “You are madness.”

Sansa can taste the salt on her lips as tears streak down her face. When she opens her eyes, he is gone, and she is left with nothing but the light of the moon.

 

* * *

 

“I demand to speak to the Queen.”

Sansa does not know these guards.

They are strangers; dressed in armour of black, and red, and with eyes that look at her with scorn.

“The Queen will not see you, your grace,” The taller one says, his voice cold. “She has commanded-“

Sansa bites her tongue so hard it tears, filling her mouth with the taste of copper.

“-that you shall be remanded to your chambers,” He finishes, “until you have been summoned for an audience.”

Sansa nods, inhaling deeply as she tries to calm the storm that is brewing within her. “When will your Queen summon me?”

The guard stills. “I … I do not know, your grace.”

“It has been three days,” Sansa says, lowering her voice. “If I cannot have an audience with her grace, can I not go to what is left of the Godswood and pray? Or are my Gods also to be taken from me?”

The guard stills, before his companion begins to speak. “Your grace, we are under the orders that you shall be confined to your rooms-“

Rage boils within her, but she cannot rage as she so wishes.  _ I must be the sea; calm, before the storm.  _ “If I cannot pray, I ask that you deliver this for me.”

She presses the letter into the guard's hand, watching as he cocks a brow. “We cannot leave our post, your grace – not to deliver a letter.”

Sansa narrows her eyes, before she bites out, “Then summon a raven.”

 

* * *

 

She hears the whispers on the fourth day of her imprisonment. 

_Jon Snow is a dragon._

She weeps, in confusion, and denial. 

It is later, when the moon is highest in the sky, that she begins to think of everything. 

She thinks of Tyrion, alone and cold. 

She thinks of Jaime, whose flesh may already be rotting, and his gold hand lay discarded in the blood of their army.

Sansa does not want to think of Cersei Lannister. There is no pain in the thought of the golden lioness, though – only immense joy that consumes her when she thinks of the Queen chained like chattel. She wonders if Cersei screams, as Sansa once had. She wonders if Cersei pleads for mercy, as Sansa once had.

_ She watched me weep for the dead, and smiled. _

_ She watched me scream for mercy, and smiled. _

_ I shall smile for her now, as she did for me. _

But Sansa knows nothing; she does not know if they are already dead, or if they will face trials. She knows not if the Queen will do as they had whispered before she landed – if she will truly feed them to her dragons, as they had said she had done in Meereen.

Sansa knows, then, that she does not want Cersei Lannister to die in flames.

_ No,  _ Sansa thinks,  _ I want her to die on the steps of the Great Sept of Baelor, bathed in the gold of the sun, before she too meets her end by the blade of her family’s sword. _

Sansa dreams that night of blue skies, and a bloodied sword with a lion's head.

 

* * *

 

 

It is on the fifth day that she is pulled from her prison.

The Hall is loud, and boisterous, and Sansa wonders, for a moment, if she is to be dragged from the side and stripped as she had once been.

_ This is a different time. _

_ He is dead. _

Sansa remembers the blood, then. She remembers the way he had gurgled, and begged for life. She remembers it all, and she wishes she didn’t.

Sansa’s eyes go to the throne, empty and looming. She has seen it thousands of times before – she has wept before it, has bled before it, has even smiled before it. It once meant a life in which she had dreamed – a life like the songs young girls sing before they know what it means to be the princess in those songs.

Sansa looks back to the throne.  _ Uncomfortable,  _ she thinks. She knows, of course, exactly how the iron throne feels. She has sat on it herself. It had been cold, and uncomfortable, and she had thought it right, that the throne be the most uncomfortable seat one should know.  _ It should not be a comfort, to wear the crown. _

Sansa’s breath billows out in front of air, frosting in billowing blooms. She watches, with fascination, as it disappears and she is left to look at the throne.

They have secluded her, from the court.

_ Not to be seen, and not to be heard,  _ Ser Connington had told her, as the guards had led her to the balcony. Sansa wonders if it is because they do not want the people who were once  _ hers  _ to see her, safe and well. She wonders if they do not want the people to know that their Queen is not dead, like their King.

And she wonders if they will ever let her leave that room that she once lived in, as a girl before the crown.

And so, she is kept behind a screen, in one of the viewing gallery’s’ – her face hidden, her tongue bitten, and despite all the change, Sansa Stark wonders if anything is truly different.

They have not wasted any resources, in making this a grand affair.  _ The Queen must impress,  _ Sansa thinks, before she shakes her head at the irony.  _ The world is falling apart, and yet the Queen must show them beauty in this crumbling Keep. _

The trumpets sound, and suddenly he is there, as clear as he was the day she saw him again.

_ Sansa _ , he had whispered.

He said her name like one would whisper a prayer, and she had wondered why the stars were in his eyes.  

The sound of her name on his lips echo through her mind as she sees Jon walk, in his black and scarlet armour. She has heard the whispers, now, from the guards that stand outside her door. They say he is a Prince – a dragon Prince.  _ A True dragon,  _ she thinks, and the words corrode in her mind. Jon looks more like a Stark than any of her siblings, save for Arya, and yet now he wore a crown of rubies and armour with scales, and Sansa wonders if the Gods are truly that funny.  _ They have dressed a dragon as a wolf and a wolf as a fish. _

If the sun was made to shine, Daenerys Targaryen was made to wear a crown. She glistens with the jewels of the Kings before her, but Sansa can only see the rubies that had been chipped from her husband’s crown.  _ They have wasted no time, in regaining what was once theirs. _

It is like a stranger wears her brothers skin; a stranger that wore a crown, and whose name was no longer snow.  _ Jon Targaryen,  _ Sansa thinks, the name sounding wrong.  _ Jon Snow. Jon Snow. Jon Snow. _

_ Jon Snow is a ghost, that lives with the dead,  _ she thinks, before a voice whispers deep in her mind,  _ mayhaps Sansa Stark is also a ghost, trapped in the North that once was hers. _

“They were quick, no?”

Sansa turns, startled by the voice.

Margaery Tyrell does not look different to how she had days prior.

_ Still beautiful,  _ Sansa thinks, staring at the low cut black gown of heavy silk before she turns back to the view.

It is a moment, before Margaery adds, “your grace.”

Sansa’s lips curl, and she sighs. There is a part of her that does not want to be kind to the woman who would have usurped her – whose family bore more thorns than petals. But now, they were not in a silent war – they were far from it, actually.

_ Crownless consorts,  _ Sansa thinks.

“Princess Margaery,” Sansa begins, training her voice in patience.

Margaery laughs. “I am no Princess, your grace. Not anymore.”

Sansa’s head whips to where she stands, her eyes trained forward and a twisted smirk on her lips.

“You have lost your title?” Sansa breathes, shock consuming her.

Margaery’s brown eyes find hers – the large orbs dancing with biting humour. “Lose it? No, your grace, I did not  _ lose  _ it. I surrendered it.”

“Surrendered?” Sansa echoes, her eyes narrowing. “What do you-“

“My marriage was not consummated,” Margaery says, cutting Sansa off. “And so in the eyes of the Gods, my marriage is not a true one. It is being annulled before my husband is to face trial.”

_ Tommen,  _ Sansa thinks, her gut twisting. But she squashes her laugh when Margaery talks of consummation, clearing her throat. “It was not consummated? Princess, do you truly believe they will believe that?”

“My title is Lady Margaery Tyrell, your grace.” Margaery turns away from Sansa’s eyes, and nods. “And yes, your grace, they shall believe it because it’s true.”

Sansa remains quiet, before she murmurs, “Please, Princess Margaery, tell me how a lady of your standing is married not once but twice and remains untouched in both marriages?”

Margaery does not look from the throne as she says, “I suppose it is my charm, your grace.”

Sansa cannot hide her annoyance then. “You are lucky,  _ Princess,  _ that they gave you the kind brother.”

Margaery turns to her, shock coating her features. “Your grace … I do hope you are not angry with me.”

“Angry,” Sansa whispers, her eyes narrowing as she turns to look at the throne.  _ You have no idea what anger I have.  _ “Not at all.”

Margaery does not respond. Instead, she remains silent – a silent rose in a gown of black and with a crown of lies nestled in her hair.

“She is beautiful.” Margaery moves closer to Sansa, peering at where Daenerys sits. Sansa does not respond – she is trying to refrain from hitting the woman who was once her sister by law. “And it seems … fair.”

“Fair?” Sansa questions.

“Fair.” Margaery nods, before she points to the men kneeling before the Queen. “Father says so.”

Her heart stills, as Sansa realises that the men were, indeed, Margaery’s kinsman. The men kneeling before the new Queen, with a smile bestowed upon them by the Targaryen’s, did not look like defeated men.

Sansa turns to Margaery, and raises a brow. “Tell me, Princess Margaery, where were your fathers men on the battlefield?”

“They were there, your grace,” Margaery muses, before she purses her lips. “Why do you ask?”

“Because the Queen is not treating them like strangers,” Sansa murmurs, before she turns to Margaery with a smile. “Tell me, my lady, how have the garden's been? I have been so occupied with my daughter that I haven’t had a chance to visit them.”

Margaery smiles largely, and Sansa knows that she has her answer. “The winter roses are blooming, your grace! Even the Queen spoke of them when she saw them.”

Sansa’s smile is wide as she says, “How beautiful.”

_ You are not confined, Margaery Tyrell. And your family is not being treated as traitors. _

Sansa turns back to the Grand Hall, and wonders how long the Tyrell’s had known the invasion was to happen.  _ Mayhaps as long as Tyrion and I. _

She had underestimated the Tyrells, because their sigil is no lion or wolf but a rose.

_ They would only be allying themselves with the invaders if they could gain something more than a crown,  _ Sansa thinks, watching as Lord Tyrell walks away from the throne with a smug smile on his face.

Sansa’s eyes find Jon again, and she wonders what he’s thinking. His jaw is locked, and as Sansa looks over him, she realises they share something more than a past.  _ Our skin knows the same scars,  _ she thinks,  _ yet these scars of mine are not from a battlefield, but my bed. _

It is as she is analysing Jon’s face that she hears her name.

“It is kind of you, Lady Brienne, to ask of Queen Sansa’s health,” Queen Daenerys smiles brightly. “You have, of course, been a loyal subject.”

“Brienne?” Sansa asks, trying to place the face.

“Brienne of Tarth,” Margaery informs her. “She was my husband’s sworn shield before he was murdered.”

Sansa cocks a brow. “Why would she care for me?”

“She knew your mother,” Margaery says. “She left with her, actually.”

“My mother.”

Her face is bright in Sansa’s mind; the sight of a woman with her neck cut to the bone and with a sea of red hair joining the blood in the water of the river she was thrown in.

“Queen Sansa is safe, and well.” Daenerys smiles, her smile so comforting that even Sansa could be fooled by it. “She resides in confinement, at this time, until her family by law is tried for their crimes.”

“And what of the Princess?” Lady Brienne asks. “What of her child, your grace?”

“She too is safe,” The Queen says.

Sansa waits, to hear anything of her title or the discussions they had the day after the battle. But there is no hint of tension, or unease; instead, there is a vibrant smile on the Queens face, and Sansa cannot help but think that her smile is the sun, and all the stars, too.

_ That smile is a lie, and a smile that can lie so easily is dangerous.   _

Sansa purses her lips, turning to leave before she sees Jon glance to the gallery – his grey eyes gazing up at where she stands, hidden behind a screen.

_ He knows I am here,  _ she thinks, staring into the eyes of her father,  _ he knows I’m here. _

And something about that thrilled her.

 

* * *

 

 

“Sansa?”

Sansa turns, the sight of Jon Snow standing on the steps below her meeting her. The first thing she notices is that he wears black, and red finery, the same attire as he wore earlier and the gawkiness of what once was her bastard brother has been stripped him of him. Now, before her, is a stranger she knows nothing of save for his name, but even that may have changed.

“Jon,” Sansa whispers, before she lowers her eyes.  _ He is not who you remember.  _ Sansa takes a step forward, before she nods. “My Lord.”

Confusion crosses his face, before it is replaced with realisation. He is clumsy with his bow, Sansa notes first.  _ He is still a Snow, even though they may dress him up like a dragon. _

“I apologise, my lady, for not announcing myself,” Jon says, swallowing something akin to nervousness. “That was not … proper.”

Sansa does not know how to respond. For all that she has been raised to speak to courtiers, and to handle their stumbles, she does not know how to speak to a stranger she once knew.

And neither, it seems, does he.

“I … I … realise this must be confusing,” He begins, rubbing the back of his neck. “Dan-Her grace wishes that I did not come here, but- but I- ugh- I had to.”

Sansa’s fingers feel the scar on the back of her palm, as she stares at him. “You are here to talk to me?”

“Yes,” Jon breathes, his grey eyes shining. “I- can we?”

He is unsure of himself, that much Sansa knows. When she walks, his gaze follows and when she catches him staring, he looks away, a torn expression consuming his scarred face.

_ He looks so different,  _ she thinks, as she pours herself wine. It is thick, and red, and as Sansa lifts the cup to her lips, she can only think of how the blood had looked, on the tiles of Maegors Holdfast.

They are quiet.

They are strangers.

They are ghosts, of who they once were.

Sansa does not shy away from his gaze – it is Jon, that will not meet her gaze. Sansa wonders what he sees. Does he see her as the child she once was, who sang songs of a summertime love and princely courtships. Or does he see her as she is now – a Queen without her crown, a woman without her dignity.

Sansa cannot look away from the man who was once her brother. She wants him to look at her – to stare at what she has become, this monster of bloodied crowns and torn flesh.  _ He cannot look at what they have made me,  _ Sansa thinks, fury flaring in her chest like an unruly bull.

Sansa wonders if she is so changed, that he cannot even bare to look at her.  _ It has been years since he has seen you,  _ she tells herself,  _ when you last saw each other, you were but a child singing about the beauty of southron princes and he was a boy dreaming of crows. _

Sansa is the first to speak.

“My husband delighted in telling me you died, my Lord,” Sansa begins, taking a sip of her wine. “You seem to be quite spritely, for a ghost.”

Jon smiles, but it does not reach his eyes. There is something about the way that he is looking around her chambers, afraid to look directly at her, as if she will somehow fade into the abyss and leave. It makes Sansa feel uneasy, to be staring at him with little to no contact.

For a moment, she wonders if he will turn on his heel and leave her chambers just as abruptly as he had entered.

“I was told you were dead,” Jon admits, his voice but a whisper. There is a heaviness to his voice that Sansa cannot un-hear; a heaviness that she has heard before.

Sansa cocks a brow. “By who?”

“Jon Connington.”

Sansa laughs, before she places a finger at her lips.  _ The dragon princes knight.  _ “He is a fool, then, for I am not dead.”

“And neither am I,” Jon says gruffly, taking a sip of his wine.

Sansa stills, before she glances to Joanna.  _ He spoke for her. He called her a Stark.  _ “Thank you, for … for speaking for us.”

“Sansa-“

“I do not know your position,” Sansa murmurs, “but it seems you have the Queens ear, and … I do not. And from what I saw today, I can only … guess.”

Jon is pensive, before he says, “I am not who you think I am, Sansa.”

Sansa cocks a brow. “No?”

“No.”

He tells her everything, but she cannot weep.

For even he is not here for her.

She has known, for days now, that he is somehow a Targaryen.

But she hadn’t thought  _ this. _

“Lyanna?” Sansa asks.

Jon nods.

“And they married?”

Jon nods, once more. “That is what they tell me.”

“So you are no Snow,” Sansa says, taking a step back from him. “You are … you are a Targaryen.”

“Yes.”

Sansa thinks of her father, and wonders if his lie was worth it.  _ You watched my mother weep for a shame that was not hers to bare. _

“So you are no bastard?” Sansa asks, and he nods, carefully.

She does not know what to think.

_ The bastard has risen above you,  _ a voice whispers, and Sansa revolts against it, pushing it away from her.

Sansa turns from him, to the window she had been gazing from before. Her mind is a fortress of confusion, and pain, and she knows not what is real, and what has been a lie. The thought of her father's face consumes her, and yet it is corroding away with the acid of his lies.

_ I thought he was better, because he was mine,  _ she thinks,  _ and yet he lied for love like they all do. _

“Sansa …” Jon murmurs, but Sansa does not want to hear from him. Not when she knows the truth.

“Father lied, then.”

Sansa can hear Jon swallow. “Yes.”

The laugh that escaped her is acidic. “I have spent years haunted by him – by his  _ goodness _ – and he lied.”

“Sansa-“

She is hysterical, now.

“He lied, for you,” Sansa breathes, wondering why she was acting so unreasonably. There is a part of her that is screaming – screaming for control, and for composure. It is that part of her that has kept her alive all these years; a part that relishes in the safety of compliance, and false smiles.  _ I wear my lies like a knight wears his shield. _

And yet there is a foreign part to her, that is wild with its grief. It thrashes within her, beseeching her for dominance, as it reminds her again and again that her father is not who she has thought him to be for so long.

_ I have been haunted by a lie with my father’s face. _

“Are you well? Can I call the Maester for you?”

Sansa laughs harder.

“Grand Maester Pycelle would sooner poison me before he would heal me.” Sansa laughs, shaking her head before she begins to sober.  _ Everything you once knew is now gone. Everything you once believed is now gone.  _ “You must hate him.”

Jon clears his throat, confused. “Who?”

“Father,” Sansa says, turning to face him. “He made you into a bastard, after all.”

Jon lowers his gaze. “I do not hate your father.”

It is odd, to hear Jon speak of Eddard Stark like a stranger. But Sansa supposes that he is, after all, a stranger – he had kept an ocean of secrets, and Sansa does not know whether she can admire him, or hate him.

“Prince Jon.” Sansa laughs, once more. Jon is watching her, with a cool gaze, but she does not care. “Prince. Not King.”

Jon sighs. “No. Not King.”

“Do you want to be King?” Sansa asks, meeting his eyes. The grey that meets her is nothing like the grey of the stones beyond the walls, and everything like storm clouds. They torment her, in their similarity with the ghost that haunts her.

Jon laughs, and Sansa feels her chest tighten at the guttural sound. “The last people I led stabbed me to death – if I was King, they would just use better swords.”

Sansa purses her lips, but she cannot deny that there is relief that blossoms at his words. “Good. Those that sit in that throne become mad.”

“I do not think her grace will-“

“Mayhaps,” Sansa says with a shrug, taking another sip of wine. “But not even the strongest of necks can hold underneath the weight of the crown, Jon. I have seen what it does.”

Jon looks away, his jaw locking. “I thought you would have more questions.”

“Questions?” Sansa muses, her tongue rolling over the word.  _ My curiosity was rewarded with blood and scars. Why should I ever be curious?  _ “What do say shall I ask? Shall I ask you of my family by law? Of my Uncles by law? Of my mother by law?”

Sansa cannot stomach asking of her, but she continues. “Or mayhaps I should ask you about if I shall wear shackles soon. Shall I ask of my daughter, and the name Waters, or shall I ask of the reason I have been kept to house arrest? Oh, I’m sorry, it’s not house arrest, is it? Your Queen called it  _ confinement.  _ Like I am with child.”

Jon seems uncomfortable, at her ramblings, but there is something within him – an innate need to answer her questions – that sees him offer Sansa comfort. “I can tell you of them, if you wish.”

“Only Tyrion, and Jaime,” Sansa says. “I care nothing for  _ her.” _

“Lord Tyrion is as well as he can be,” Jon says, shifting to his other foot. “He’s asking for better wine.”

Sansa cannot help but laugh. “Not even in chains can he be sensible! Gods, the man is so small and yet he causes more trouble than an army!”

Jon smiles, then, and Sansa is caught by it – transfixed by the memory of a time gone, when they both wore smiles like the sky wore the sun. “I do not believe he will die. Dan- the Queen has met with him, and, well, the Lannister’s need one heir.”

“And Jaime?” Sansa dares, stepping forward to hear the news.

“He slayed a King,” Jon says. “So he shall die.”

Sansa’s hand goes to her stomach as it twists, and churns, revolted.  _ Kingslayer.  _ “Gods.”

Jon is watching her, his face twisting with confusion. She knows why he must be confused – to see the beaten Queen weep for the family who had imprisoned her is odd, but Sansa did not weep for Cersei, or Tywin, or even Joffrey. But Jaime, despite the greyness of his morality, was something more than them – more than the grotesqueness of the Lannister’s.

_ He is like Tyrion,  _ Sansa thinks,  _ despite the lack of humour.  _

Sansa glances over her shoulder, to where Joanna sleeps. Her daughter is the promise of summer – the promise of a life beyond the horror that Sansa has known.  _ She shall never know this pain,  _ Sansa thinks, her fingers digging into arms as she hugs herself.  _ She shall never know beatings, or blood, or a loveless life. She shall none of what I have known. _

“He shall die because he killed a King,” Sansa murmurs, meeting Jon’s eye. “If your Queen is killing Kingslayers, what shall happen to me?”


	8. A Targaryen Heir

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry I've been AWOL. Got a new job, moving states, all that crap. Enjoy!

When the messenger came, he held a letter that contained but five words.

_ You shall have new gowns. _

Sansa does not protest when a foreign seamstress comes beckoning, nor does she raise her voice when she is prodded, and poked by her pins. She does not raise her voice when the gown of red, and gold is stripped form her, or when her gowns of black and yellow are taken to the fire. But it is when she sees the fabric that her nearly appointed ladies hold that she stills.

“Black, and red?” Sansa asks fingering the fabric as she takes a step down from the dias. The newest lady, a woman loyal to the Targaryen cause, stood defiant as the dowager Queen crossed her – her eyes cold, and her stance unmoving. “You wish to dress me in their colours?”

The seamstress does not respond.

“Answer me,” Sansa demands, narrowing her eyes. “Who gave you these orders?”

“The Queen, your grace,” The seamstress says, her lips curling. “She demands it.”

Sansa looks to the ladies she has been appointed – strangers dressed in Targaryen colours too. “What is this?”

“Your grace,” Lady Tarly murmurs. “The Queen has ordered we all have new gowns-“

Sansa holds up her hand, as she takes the fabric in her hands. It is a fine silk – soft, and with black thread weaving through it. Sansa has grown accustomed to wearing red; of painting her skin red and gold to appease her husband’s family. And yet as she stares at the Targaryen cloth, Sansa knows she cannot wear these colours.

_ My skin is stained by the colours I have been forced to wear. _

_ And while they paint my skin, they pull my strings too. _

“Why?” Sansa asks, measuring her one. She does not want to seem angry; nor can she seem out of control.  _ I must play the calm one; the docile doll they wish me to be. _

“The Queen did not say,” Lady Tarly says, with a smile that Sansa supposed should be friendly.

But no smile could quell the way Sansa’s stomach twisted so violently as she was faced with the red, and black cloth. The thought comes to her as quickly as her fear does;  _ they will do to me what the Lannister’s did. _

Sansa remains quiet the rest of the fitting, her eyes not straining from where Joanna played.  _ My sweet girl,  _ Sansa thinks, her heart stuttering as her fear wrought itself around the organ,  _ will they make you theirs as well? _

It is when Jon comes to see her that she asks.

Jon had been visiting her chambers for weeks now – a steady constant in this changing world of hers. He is almost always shy, a mute ghost of a man she once knew, and yet his eyes tell her what she needs to know. Sansa can see the guilt that burns within the Stark grey; she can see every thought that consumes him, and every battle he fights.

His guilt is as potent as his new colours, and Sansa does not know what to make of it. Initially she had thought that he felt guilt at what she had become – at how she had been treated. People are perverse to others pain, Sansa knows that; even the most delicate of ladies enjoys seeing suffering, and so Sansa knows that the announcement of what the King had done to his poor wife must have delighted the court.

_ They did not see my pain,  _ she thinks,  _ until the Queen called it torture. And yet they all heard my screams. _

When he comes, the question is a ball in her throat, lodged uncomfortably.

“Have you had a pleasant day?” Jon asks, as he shifts from foot to foot. He is as he always is around her; uncomfortable.

Sansa wonders how he sees her. She wonders if he sees the scars that cover her skin; she is, after all, wearing a gown that shows her heavily mutilated arms. Or she wonders if he sees her as the girl she once was – the child that knew nothing of the South and yet wanted everything of the South.

Sansa hopes he does not see her as they do; as the Queen that was treated as a soldier rather than a consort. She hopes he does not think as they do – she hopes he does not imagine what it must have been, to be trapped beneath the body of a King whose sword saw no battle, and only her skin.

Sansa nods, refraining from informing him that her day was not pleasant at all.

“And you?” She asks, for she knows she must be polite.  _ He may have the eyes of my father, but that does not make him any less of a stranger. _

Jon looks up through his lashes, and those eyes of grey meet hers. “It was fine. We are … we are trying to determine when to put the Lannisters on trial.”

“You need only kill Tywin, and his daughter,” Sansa murmurs. “Jaime and Tyrion bear no harm to your-“

“Jaime will die, Sansa,” Jon says, sitting down. “It is already decided.”

“Without even a trial-“

“He has left too many bodies for there to be any other decision,” Jon says, flinching. “But I do know him – I suppose I can mention to the Queen of your protest…”

Sansa glances toward him. “Will it even make a difference?”

Jon meets her eye, but does not respond.

Sansa purses her lips, before she goes to where she had laid the cloth the seamstress had left. She places it before Jon, the scarlet and black silks laid before the prince like a poison.

“What is this?”

Sansa sits down. “I thought you could tell me.”

Pain flickers on his face, like a shadow of an experience already lived. “I … I told her-“

“They said this was the Queens doing,” Sansa murmurs, cutting him off. He seems taken aback; consumed by the battle within his own mind that Sansa wonders if he can even see her, or if the cloud of guilt on his conscience is blinding him to her. “But I do not understand why the Queen would wish for me to dress in the colours of her house.”

He is quiet, pensive and thoughtful. Sansa wants him to deny what she thinks; Sansa wants him to refute her assumption, but there is a guilt to him that spreads through the room, crawling over Sansa’s skin and so she knows that whatever he will tell her will not be what she wishes to hear.

When he does not meet her eyes, she knows what her fate must be.

_ I am not to die,  _ she thinks,  _ I will simply have another name thrust upon me. _

_ How many names must I have? How many cloaks must I wear? How many men must I let touch me? _

“I do not want to think what it means,” Sansa whispers, before she glances over her shoulder at the sound of Joanna’s breathing. “But I am no fool, Jon. I know what they do to women who they cannot kill. They marry her off, and watch her die that way.”

Jon still does not look to her.

Sansa looks to her hands, and swallows her rage; her utter anger at being once again used in this way. She wonders if there are only sunless skies, and different names for her; if she is resigned to a life where Sansa Stark is truly dead, and she is to be nothing but a wife of a man more important.

_ I will not let them do this to me. I do not want any name but Stark. _

For Sansa Stark knows that she would have rather died, than to be married to another man she did not so choose.

She thinks of the man they wish to marry her to;  _ Aegon Targaryen. _

_ He is not even a true noble,  _ she thinks, the rage bubbling within her like a boiling pot, acidic in its poison.  _ He is a commoner with a crown, and they believe it because he wears it so well. _

Sansa wonders why she had ever thought it would be so different, for it seems so much the same that it is terrifying.

_ “You are to be married,”  _ Cersei had said, her smile bright and her eyes narrowed.

“ _ Married?”  _ She had swallowed. She had been but a girl, whose father had been killed before her and whose family was being slaughtered by the day. She had stuttered, and flushed, but there was no argument. She was, after all, nothing but their little caged bird.

“When will I be married then?” Sansa asks, the feeling so familiar that she wishes the words were foreign to her.

Jon’s head snaps up. “I-“

“For all that your court may tell you I am a pretty little fool, I am  _ not _ ,” Sansa snaps, her rage a tsunami within her, “and I know when bad news is to be told to me, Jon. You are not the first person to tell me I am to die.”

“You are not to die,” Jon says, his face contorting in revulsion. “You will never die because of an order.”

Sansa laughs. “A marriage is just another death sentence – just another block to rest my head, Jon.”

“Sansa …” Jon begins, his eyes tormented. “I never wanted this for you.”

Sansa looks away, unable to stare at him any longer. “And I am sure Aegon does not want this either – he is being given a spoiled bride with a child that is illegitimate. But I suppose it is a better match than he has ever dreamed of, for as much as your Queen tries to dress him up he is nothing but a-”

“ _ Sansa _ ,” Jon begins, pained. Sansa halts, her eyes returning to Jon to see his face crumple in pain.

“What?” Sansa asks, her anger wavering.

It is a long silence – a silence that resembles so many Sansa has known. The silence that existed when Cersei had told her of her marriage to Joffrey.  silence that had existed before Joanna had cried out into the night. The silence that had come when Sansa had waited in the throne room, her husband’s blood staining her hands and her uncertain future screaming so loudly she could not hear anything.

Jon looks as tortured as the men Joffrey would harm in the grand hall; he looks as if he is being torn from limb to limb, each hair burned and destroyed. Sansa once knew his face – knew his sorrow, and his pain, but now, she knows nothing.

“Jon?” Sansa asks, confused.

“It is not Aegon,” He finally chokes out. “You … you are not marrying Aegon.”

Sansa stills.

For there are only three Targaryen’s.

Aegon.

Daenerys.

And Jon.

Her heart stutters, and then it begins to scream.

“No,” Sansa whispers. “No.”

Jon cannot look at her.

Her stomach twists, before it curdles and suddenly she is running, heaving into a vase. She can hear the scraping of Jon’s chair as he stands. But Sansa cannot care for anything Jon does, for all she can think of are these chains that are wrapping themselves around her wrists and bearing her to a man she once thought her brother.

_ This is wrong,  _ she thinks,  _ this is so wrong. _

“I know it is wrong,” He says, and Sansa realises she must have spoken her thoughts aloud. “Dany … Dany says Targaryen’s have married each other for centuries, that this match would be no worse than that.”

Sansa heaves again.

“I didn’t want this,” Jon cries. “I have begged her not to do this.”

Sansa places her hand on her mouth, tears spilling from her eyes.

“This is the only match the people would accept,” Jon says. “That is what Dany keeps saying. It will legitimize my claim, and it will … it will give us love. You were their Queen-“

“-and now I am to be your wife,” Sansa whispers, wiping the tears from her cheeks. “Your wife.”

“I never wanted this, Sansa,” Jon croaks. “But if I do not … if I do not …”

“What?” Sansa asks, turning. “What?”

“Joanna is a threat,” Jon says, his eyes red. “And she would be sent North but … but you would not be with her.”

Sansa’s holds her stomach, as if she had been stabbed. “Why? Why would she do this?”

“You cannot leave Kings Landing … she … she does not trust you, Sansa.”

Sansa sobs, her whole body folding with the waves of her grief. The thought of a life without her daughter was the thought of her life in chains; of a life like the one her mother had led in the years before they cut her throat. Sansa can almost see her – can see the vivid red hair, and the fair smile, yet her throat was not free of scars and blood stained her skin, and Sansa knows she will never let it be what her mother suffered.

What her child is to her was not something that can be taken. Her daughter is the breath in her lungs, and is every beat of her heart, and  _ these people wish to take her from me.  _ Pain is inconsequential to what a life without her babe would be; a life without the sun, and the sea, and all the trees. A life without  _ life. _

_ They should just cut my head off, and be done with it. _

“So I should either marry a man who was once my brother,” Sansa cries, “or lose my daughter?”

“I’m so sorry.”

Sansa wants to vomit again.

“Get out,” Sansa hisses. “Get out.”

And so, her betrothed leaves her to weep, and weep she does.

* * *

 

“The Queen has been told.”

“Of?”

“Of the Dowagers Queen sickness,” Lady Tarly hisses beyond the screen. “She has not left her bed in days, and she has not even seen Prince Jon when he comes to visit.”

“But you know why that is, of course?”

Lady Tarly sighs. Sansa rolls in her bed, hiding further under the furs as she strains to hear what the woman says. “That is but whispers, Lady Grey. Do not heed to it.”

“Yes, my lady.”

 

* * *

“Are you sick?”

Sansa shakes her head as she brushes Joanna’s hair from her small face. “No, my wolf. I’m not.”

“Then why won’t you leave your bed? Septa Samor says you are ill.”

Sansa shakes her head again, before she sighs at the mention of the new Septa.  _ Daenerys choice _ . “No, my love, I’m not. I’m just sad.”

“Sad?” Joanna’s eyebrows furrow. “But why?”

“Because, my dear love.” Sansa says, wrapping her daughter in her arms. “The Gods have willed that your Mama does something she does not wish to do, but must.”

“Why?”

“Because sometimes the Gods have plans that we cannot see,” Sansa whispers. “And sometimes we have to weep at them, for they are not what we saw for ourselves, but it is okay to weep at some things.”

Joanna’s eyebrows furrow. “Why?”

“Because sometimes, some things are so awful that you must weep,” Sansa says, pressing a kiss to Joanna’s forehead. “And there is no sin in weeping, my sweet girl – there is only sin in pretending your tears do not exist.”

 

* * *

 

 

_ Inhale. _

_ Exhale. _

_ Inhale. _

_ Exhale. _

Sansa places her hand on her stomach as she leans against the stone of her wall, closing her eyes as she tries to maintain her quietness. Two of her ladies maids are asleep next to her bed, but it was not a strange thing – Sansa knew why they were there, after all.  _  If she cannot see me outside my rooms, she must see me from within them. _

Sansa flattens her hand against the stone wall, and thinks over what she knows once more. It seems that it is all she has been doing – contemplating the game, and wondering how she can beat it.  _ I have been playing the game as a Queen when really I am simply a pawn once more. _

Sansa glances to where her ladies maids sleep.  _ Snakes,  _ she thinks,  _ serpents paid with the coin of a woman who wishes to crown me with a crown I have already worn.  _ Whenever she thinks of it – of what they are making her do – she wonders if she can even bear it.

Jon Snow is not a man she ever tough to marry.

Jon Snow is a man she once thought to be her brother.

Jon Snow was hated by her mother.

Jon Snow was someone  _ she  _ hated.

Jon Snow was a stranger; and this Prince that stands in his place is stranger still.

Sansa can see why the white queen would command such a match. Sansa is the only known heir to the North, and Jon is of her kin. Sansa is the widow of a man that sat on the Iron Throne. Sansa has worn the crown Daenerys Targaryen now adorns. Sansa knows the people of Westeros far better than a foreigner with royal blood; Sansa knows this land, and Daenerys trembles at the mere thought of her existence.

_ And so I am to be chained to Jon Snow, and chained to their crown too. _

Sansa can almost see it; this game they all play. She can see herself, with chains wrapped around her wrists and scales that begin to cover her skin. She can see her father, and his head – her mother, and her slit throat. She can see Joffrey – his beauty stained by the mutilation of his death. And then there are the dragons, terrifying and huge, who wrap themselves around this city like a disease.

_ I cannot argue with them,  _ Sansa thinks, _ I cannot manipulate them, or think to outwit them. I cannot do as I did to Cersei, and Joffrey. If I do, I will lose my daughter. _

Sansa looks to where Joanna sleeps, peacefully unaware. The sob catches her by surprise, tearing out of her throat and silenced only by her hand. The tears come quickly after that – flooding her vision and staining her cheeks.

_ I will do as they bid,  _ she decides,  _ and I will wear red and black, and their ugly crown. They want me to marry him for the North, and the North they shall have. _

It is wrong, Sansa knows, to think that the Targaryen’s would ever know the North to be theirs. She wants to run from the capital then – run as far north as she can possibly make, and claim it as she had always planned.  _ Shae must be in White harbor by now – she must have already given the Manderly’s my letter. I could still go North. _

But the future she had once dreamily imagined, and planned for was now slipping through her fingers, sand in a storm.

_ I can’t go North,  _ Sansa thinks,  _ I will never make it on horseback, and not with Joanna. _

Sansa feels as if her chest is going to burst with sickness as her heart pulls, and aches, for she knows in the depths of her gut that there is no future for her without tying herself to Jon Snow.

“Gods save me,” Sansa whispers, wiping away her tears. “Gods save me.”

_ I shall wear their colours, but it shall not be as it was before. I shall speak my own words, and make my own choices. _

Sansa looks to her hands, before she inhales once more.

_ I am Sansa Stark, and no man shall rule me ever again. _

 

* * *

 

 

“You are feeling better then?”

Daenerys Targaryen stood before her, in a gown sewn with jewels and with a crown that seemed too heavy for her little neck.

Sansa does not answer.

Daenerys purses her lips, and motions to the wine. “Please, take a sip. I fear talk of marriage is too heavy without some ale.”

“You wish for me to marry Prince Jon,” Sansa says, not touching the wine.

Daenerys stills. “Yes.”

Sansa is still as she remembers her words.

_ I am Sansa Stark, and no man shall rule me. _

_ I am Sansa Stark, and no man shall rule me. _

_ I am Sansa Stark, and no man shall rule me. _

“I will marry him,” Sansa agrees, her voice low. Daenerys eyes light up in surprise, as if she had expected Sansa to scream and protest.  _ Do you think I am that stupid?  _ “But I have wishes, your grace, that I cannot ignore-“

Daenerys brings her wine to her lips. “Wishes?”

“Yes, your grace,” Sansa murmurs.  _ I have many wishes. I wished to never marry again. I wished to not see my father killed. I wished for love. I have many wishes.  _ “I wish to return North.”

“As you shall.” Daenerys nods in agreement. Sansa stills, having not expected agreement so quickly. “The people must see the Prince and his wife.”

“Not his wife,” Sansa murmurs. “The Lady of Winterfell.”

Daenerys cocks a brow. “You wish to live in the North?”

“And raise my family there,” Sansa says. “I wish to never return to the Capital.”

“Now that,” Daenerys murmurs, “will not do.”

Sansa clears her throat, and finally takes a sip of the wine – the thick liquid like gold to her throat. “Your grace, I have suffered in this city. Greatly. I simply wish to retire to the North once we win it, and live there in peace as …”

“As the Warden?” Daenerys is looking to her, amused. But there is something with her eyes, something strange, that Sansa can’t seem to determine.

“It is my right,” Sansa murmurs. “Until … until I have a son.”

Daenerys eyes light up. “So you simply wish for the Prince to be your … consort?”

“He is the Prince of Dragonstone,” Sansa murmurs. “He shall have his own lands, and his own seat. He needn’t mine, your grace.”

Daenerys purses her lips, before she stands. “My House is strong, Sansa, but we have no heirs. Aegon … he has accepted my offer of a betrothal and we shall marry.”

Sansa catches Daenerys eye, and she can see that Daenerys, for all that she so different to Sansa, they had one thing in common. They both did not want to marry.

“But Prince Jon … the people love him,” Daenerys says. “The North loves him. It will bring unity. A child will bring unity.”

Sansa closes her eyes. “Your grace?”

“You can have your North, and your title, and there is only one thing you must do,” Daenerys says, before she passed something into Sansa’s hand. “Give our house a child, Sansa, and you shall have everything.”

Sansa looks to her hands, and finds herself grasping a necklace. Sansa turns it over, analysing the engravings before realisation cuts through her. She knows this necklace. Cersei Lannister had cut it off her neck on the night of her wedding. It was the necklace her father had given her, with the Stark words engraved in its metal face.

Her gut drops, and her heart stutters, before she looks up and realises what Daenerys is saying.

“Your grace,” Sansa whispers in objection. “I … it could take years to become with child-“

Daenerys sighs. “Then you shall stay in the capital until you bear us an heir.”

Sansa looks to her lap, and clutches her necklace, as two words repeat in her mind.

_ Sansa Targaryen. _


	9. An Old Bride

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Look at me, updating within a few days? Crazy. On a side note, been listening to a lot of Sigrid for this chapter - definitely something to check out. Also another thing to check out: The Keepers on Netflix. Seriously, go check it out. 
> 
> ALSO: I'm thinking of posting a new chapter to Because She Promised. Tell me if you would like that because it's been like ... a year. But I was going through stuff, so don't hold it against me. 
> 
> ALSO: although I love Jonsa, I am thinking of tackling the whole Arya/Gendry ship because I want to let my Arya freak flag fly even though Sansa is my fave I also have a great love for Arya and so I think my next (theoretical) fic will be her as the protagonist. But you know I am moving and properly adulating so like probably won't happen. 
> 
> ALSO: I have like a half written like 30k Rhaegar/Lyanna fic I'm thinking of finishing, would anyone be interested?

Sansa Stark has been a bride before.

She has woken up early, and felt the same dread. She has been dressed with the same gaggle of excited ladies dressing her in a fine gown of heavy silks. She has watched as her hair is wrapped in hot rods, and her cheeks are tapped with rouge. She has done this all before, and yet this time it feels so completely different.

Sansa feels different.

_ I am different. _

Sansa was a child when they married her to Joffrey – she was a child in a wedding gown, whose family was being slain behind the wall they had trapped her behind. She knew nothing of what it was to lay with a man, or what it was to give birth to a child – she knew nothing about what it was to be a  _ wife  _ and yet they had expected so much of her then.

It is different now.

Sansa is not a child; unaware of the realities of her fate. Sansa Stark knows what a marriage means. She knows what it means to lie with a man, even if what she has been subject to has not truly been  _ lying  _ with a man but simply torture. She knows what it means to be a mother – to have something more than her own thoughts to care for.

_ It will be different this time,  _ Sansa thinks, for it is the only thought that keeps her calm.  _ Jon is not Joffrey. _

But truly, she does not know if it will be different. Her life is a ruin – a scattered remnants of what once was. The dragons brought fire, and now she sits in the ashes of the life she once knew, clutching at the ghosts that haunt her. Sansa cannot escape them – her mind is a graveyard of those she has ever loved, and it seems to grow each year.

Sansa closes her eyes, as she is bathed, inhaling the scent of rose oil as she thinks of the time before.

_ I asked for love, and he gave me scars,  _ Sansa thinks, as she remembers the man who was once her husband,  _ he made a game of my pain, and I hate him for it. I absolutely hate him. _

“Your Grace?”

Sansa opens her eyes.

Lady Tarly is smiling, in the way every lady is.  _ They are excited,  _ Sansa thinks,  _ for a wedding that is not theirs. Today they will get their wedding, despite the war that is being fought beyond these walls. _

“It’s time to dress,” She says, as she offers Sansa a warm towel.

Sansa feels nothing as they dress her.

She does not even look to the dress as they tighten the strings.

They adjust the jewels, heavy and extravagant, before a crown is sewn into her hair.

“Well?” Lady Grey asks, a broad smile on her lips as she motions to the mirror.

Sansa stares at her reflection, a storm in her stomach. Her gown is grey, and white, with wolves embroidered into the skirt. Sansa looks down, tracing the sight of a dire wolf staring at her. Her throat tightens, and suddenly Sansa is but a girl again, looking at the embroidery on her mother’s dresses – fish, and wolves, together in the Northern snow. She had always thought wolves were such an ugly thing to be on a dress, and yet now, Sansa knows they are beautiful.

_ Lady,  _ she thinks, her heart clenching. She hasn’t thought of Lady in a long time.

“Do you like the crown?” Lady Tarly asks, peering over Sansa’s shoulder. “It is made of bronze, and dragon glass, your grace.”

_ My brothers crown was made of bronze. _

Sansa truly studies her reflection then, glaring at the women she sees. She looks different from the girl she had once been – the girl who had been married before. They had dressed that girl in a gown of white, with no clue to her heritage, and placed a crown of rubies on her head, and now … now she does not look so much a girl, but a woman.

“It’s beautiful,” Sansa says, for she knows it is what they wish for her to say. She even smiles. “It is brilliant work. Thank you.”

They will not allow Joanna to attend her wedding, and so she goes to the Nursery she is being kept in.

“Mama!” Joanna gasps as she sees her, her eyes lighting up in excitement. “Mama!”

“My little wolf,” Sansa murmurs, as she pulls her daughter from the ground and wraps her in her arms. “Are you so happy to see me?”

Joanna nods. “You look pretty, Mama.”

Sansa beams, bright and true. “So do you, my darling girl.”

“Septa Samor says you are getting married.” Joanna smiles up at her, and Sansa’s heart breaks that her babe cannot be there. But there is a part of her that knows it is better if Joanna is kept in the safety of the keep – where people will not stare, or call out to her. Daenerys cannot have her as a threat.

“I am,” Sansa says, pressing a kiss to her babe’s forehead. “Do you know who to?”

“Prince Jon!” Joanna parrots.

Sansa nods, before she walks over to the edge of the room where there is a window – away from the prying ears of the Septa and her ladies. “Yes, my smart girl. Now I shall only be a little while, and then I shall come see you tonight before you have dinner. And then after today, you and I will move rooms so we can be a little closer. Does that sound good?”

Joanna nods, enthusiastically. “Yes, Mama.”

Sansa smiles. “Now, will you be on your best behaviour for Septa Samor?”

Joanna looks so much like Arya then – her wild raven curls shaking as she nods her head. But there is a glint that lights up her Tully eyes; a glint that tells Sansa that she is too much like the Arya Sansa once knew.

Sansa presses a kiss to Joanna’s head, before she places her on the floor. “Best behaviour, Joanna.”

“Yes, Mama.”

“I love you,” Sansa says, feeling the air rush out of her lungs as if she was suffocating.

“I love you too, Mama.”

The city looks so different.

Sansa is kept within a litter, looking through the small holes in the partition to see the place she had once knew so well.  _ War has truly claimed it. _

Sansa’s dress feels too tight, her jewels too heavy, and her heart too fast.

Sansa knows what it means to be dressed up – what it means to be a puppet. And yet for all she had allowed Cersei to dress her in fine gowns, and to parade her around the capital like some sort of prize, it somehow felt wrong now. Before, there had been an end – there had been a time she could see where Joffrey was gone, and she was her own woman.

Now, there was no time.

Now, there was only Jon, and the Queen's heir.

Sansa shudders simply thinking about it – thinking about lying in a bed anywhere near the man she once thought to be her brother.  _ You lay with Joffrey,  _ she reminds herself,  _ a man that killed babes simply because they may have been bastards of his father. You did it to survive, and you will do it again for the same reason. _

And yet there is a wrongness to the thought of it – a wrongness that has sent her father far from her mind, and sight.

She has not seen his ghost in days.

_ He knows it is wrong,  _ Sansa thinks, twisting her skirts in her hands.

Even Jon had hardly spoken to her – a small note, written in messy scrawl she could identify, that simply said:   _ I shall keep you safe. I’m sorry. _

It was small, and yet as she read his words over and over again, there was something there. Something that reminded her so much of a time that seemed so gone.

Sansa can hear the people outside her litter, shouting for the Queen.

Shouting for her.

The litter halts, and Sansa inhales sharply before the curtain is opened and she steps into the street.

They scream for her, as Sansa had hoped they would. She gives them a small smile as she is led up the steps to the Great Sept of Baelor, her stomach churning as she pulls her cloak further around the neck, shivering at the cold.

It is quiet when she enters the Sept, and Sansa can only hear the sound of her heart pounding in her ears. The court is before her, and as they stare, as they always do. She wonders what they think of her – what they think of the girl that was once a joke, then a Queen, and now a soon to be Princess.

Sansa swallows, before she starts to walk. She almost stumbles on the descent, but she maintains her composure.  _ Almost.  _ Her life is an almost. Almost free. Almost dead. Almost loved.

Jon does not turn as she walks, and Sansa is thankful. She cannot look at him – not now. Instead she looks at his back, in the fine black garb he is wearing and the fine, black crown that rests in his brown locks. He is taller than Joffrey ever was, and stockier –  _ stronger.  _ Sansa wonders about how many battles Jon had fought in, compared to the man who had once been her husband.

Joffrey liked to play at war, while Jon fought one.  _ Joffrey did not even know how to fight me when I killed him,  _ she thinks as she walks, her eyes glaring into Jon’s back as she tries to remember  _ why  _ she is walking.

_ Joanna. Joanna. Joanna. _

It is a hymn she continues to repeat, again and again, for she knows she will do anything for the girl that is kept within the Keep. Joanna is her sun, and moon, and all of her stars, and her life is the only reason Sansa can walk. Sansa’s life is a dam, and they are draining it, but she knows that for as long as Joanna breathes she will do what it means to survive.

_ I want to scream,  _ she thinks as she walks,  _ I want to weep. _

Sansa feels like the breath one takes before they cry. That small hitch in the throat that comes as the breath enters her lungs, and the painful tightening that comes before the first sob. Sansa feels it all then; her grief, her pain, her longing for a life without cloaks and names.

When she reaches Jon, he looks up.

Sansa expects to see a man she does not know – the stranger that she has been met with for the weeks she has seen him – but when she meets his eyes, she realises she knows this man.

The Jon standing before her is scared, and suddenly she can see the boy that she once knew – the boy who was motherless, and whose name was snow. She can see him now, in the gardens of Winterfell, laughing as Robb runs after him. She can see his tears, as her mother reprimands him and sneers Snow. She can see the life he once had, when he was a lie and her father lived.

It catches Sansa off guard – the familiarity of a man she hasn’t seen in years. Jon has seemed so different when he had seen her that day on the iron throne, a mirage of a man, and now he was the boy she had grown with, the boy she knew, the boy she would sneer  _ Snow. _

His grey orbs – the eyes of her father, of her sister – stare at her in regret as she takes the step to stand beside him, and it becomes clear then that he does not want this. This Prince is no Prince – he is a soldier; whose life is not his own.  _ It never has been,  _ she thinks wryly,  _ soldiers and women have much in common. They both do not have choices. _

There is Maester than stands before them, and Sansa wonders if he will take Pycelle’s place.

He begins to speak – to say words Sansa already knows – and Sansa repeats them, for she knows it is her duty.

But Jon … Jon halts.

Sansa looks up at the Prince before her, and cannot help but smile.  _ It is his first marriage, after all. _

When Jon takes her cloak from his shoulders, Sansa can feel him trembling before he replaces the white and grey with black and red.

When the Maester asks that they kiss, Sansa stills – her heart thundering with the storm of her hesitance. Sansa inhales deeply, before she turns to Jon.

“With this kiss, I pledge my love,” She says as she leans forward, and brushes her lips against his.

“With this kiss, I pledge my love,” Jon repeats, quieter, more solemn.

It is done.

They are married. 

But the kiss is cold, and the cloak is heavy, and Sansa Stark knows, despite their efforts, she is no dragon.

 

* * *

 

 

The ballroom bustles with a court that celebrates.

Lords and Ladies dance before them, with jewels that glitter and with crowns of gold. Sansa does not look away from how they dance, nor does she eat the food that is before her. It is not as opulent as her first wedding, and for that Sansa is thankful. To feast while those beyond their walls starve was the cruelest of jokes.

Jon does not eat, either.

Sansa can see, from the corner of her eye, that his food remains untouched. There is an air of coldness between them – a tension for they both know what they must do once the food has vanished from their plates, and the dancing has stopped.

Sansa closes her eyes at that thought.

“My lady?”

Sansa looks up at Lady Tarly, whose cheeks are red from the dancing. “Yes?”

“It is time,” She says.

Sansa nods, realising what she means. “Thank you, Lady Tarly.”

Sansa stands, to the attention of her husband and the Queen. “Princess Sansa?”

“I have promised my daughter that I would put her to bed,” Sansa says, looking to the Queen.

Queen Daenerys smiles. “Surely she can miss one night with you, Princess. You are newly married, after all – the people wish to see their new Princess!”

Sansa opens her mouth to protest, but it is Jon that speaks for her. He leans forward, his eyes narrowing at his Aunt as he murmurs, “She has done everything you have asked of her, Dany. Gods be good, let her do one thing she asks.”

Sansa is shocked – shocked that he would stand up for her so publicly, but then again it is all he has done since she has known him. He campaigned for Joanna to be a Stark. He spoke on her behalf in regards to Jaime.

Daenerys does not flinch, but her eyes flare with annoyance. “Jon-“

Jon slams his hands down on the table, shattering the joyousness in one moment. Sansa watches him, wide eyed and confused.

“Go, Sansa,” Jon says through gritted teeth, taking no heed to his Aunt. “Go see Joanna.”

Daenerys violet eyes blaze with a fury that Sansa has not seen – not from the white-haired Queen – but she supposes it resembles the dragons she wields. Sansa is hesitant to leave, but she only need see Jon’s eyes to know that she must.

“Your grace,” Sansa murmurs, dipping into a low curtsy before she leaves the hall – watching as a sour Prince motions for the music to reignite.

_ He is not so changed,  _ she thinks,  _ for he is still as sour as he was when he was a boy.   _

 

* * *

 

 

“Did you have a good day, Mama?”

Sansa smiles briefly as she tucks Joanna deeper within the furs, and lies. “Yes, my little love. I had a  _ brilliant  _ day.”

“Brilliant?” Joanna asks, her eyes shining.

Sansa nods, brushing her babe’s wild hair from her face.  _ She is a true Stark,  _ Sansa thinks,  _ and Arya would take all the credit for her looks.  _ “Yes. The Prince placed his cloak over my shoulders, and gave me a kiss, and everyone cheered. It was quite the wedding.”

Joanna soaks everything up, but it takes only a few words that break her mother. “Why could I not come?”

Sansa smiles, despite her pain. “Because the Queen thought it would be awfully boring for you.”

A line comes between Joanna’s brows. “I don’t like the Queen.”

“Joanna!” Sansa reprimands. “You must never say such things.”

“I don’t like her,” Joanna says simply. “She is mean, for not letting me come.”

Sansa laughs, and shakes her head. “You wouldn’t have liked it, my little wolf, I promise. It was quite boring – you would have a better time playing with your new dolls.” Joanna glances to where one sits, a new gift from the Queen. “And … how can the Queen be mean if she gives you such good presents?”

Joanna is quiet, before she whispers, “Do you like the Prince?”

Sansa can feel her smile fading. “Do you want to know a story, little wolf?”

Joanna nods.

“Well,” Sansa begins, “it is not much of a story, but Prince Jon and I know each other from when we were younger. He used to live with me, and my family when I was older than you. When I married your Papa, and went to live in King's Landing, I did not see Prince Jon for a very long time.”

“Until he came!” It bursts out of Joanna, and Sansa smiles.

“Yes.” Sansa smiles, nodding. “And when I saw him again, I was much older than the last time I had seen him and I was very, very happy.”

“Truly?” Joanna asks, her eyes wide. “You missed him?”

Sansa purses her lips. “I have missed my family … so much.”

“I know your family!” Joanna announces. “Grandfather Ned, and Grandmother Catelyn, and- and Uncle Robb-“

Sansa laughs, placing a kiss on Joanna’s head. “You know everyone, because you are my smart girl. And Prince Jon … he is kind, and although his beard may make him look quite scary, he is a good man. He will be a good Papa to you.”

“Because Papa is gone,” Joanna remembers. “Because he has gone to live with the Gods in the sky.”

A ghost of a smile rests of Sansa’s face before she nods, and places her hand on Joanna’s face. “Jon will be better than Papa ever was, okay? Jon will be nice, and will not yell, and you shall never be scared of him. And if you are, I bid you tell me because Mama never wants you to be scared. I will never let anyone scare you. Do you understand, Joanna?”

Joanna nods.

“You have the blood of the First men in your veins, and you are the heir to House Stark,” Sansa says to her daughter. “You are worth more than any man in Westeros, Joanna. You are my special, special girl.”

 

“And you love me most?” Joanna asks. “More than Prince Jon?”

“I love you most. I promise.” Sansa bends down to Joanna’s eye level, and nods. “Joanna, my love for you is like the sun; you may not see it, but it shall always be there. Clouds or no clouds.” Joanna smiles, and Sansa nods. “Okay, bed now. No more stories.”

“Okay.”

 

* * *

 

“You are just in time for the bedding ceremony.”

Sansa is frozen in her chair at Prince Aegon’s words.

“Aegon,” Jon snaps.

“No.” The Queen's voice is the one that Prince Aegon turns to. “No, there shall be no bedding ceremony. I believe there is no need for it, after all.”

Sansa swallows her fear at the thought of being touched, and looks to the Queen – gratitude flowing through her. Suddenly she feels like she is but a girl again, looking at Cersei Lannister as she joined the shouts for the bedding to begin. Of course, it was Joffrey who initiated it, his hands tearing at her small clothes and then tearing at her skin when the clothes were discarded.

Sansa remembers how it felt, to be raped. Sansa remembers how it felt to clutch at the sheets, and have tears blurring her vision. Sansa remembers how it felt to wonder if her brother would ever sack the city, and find the King ruining his sister. She would imagine it, as he raped her, again and again.

_ I asked for love, and he gave me scars. _

_ I asked for songs, and he made me scream. _

_ I asked for freedom, and he married me. _

Sansa has hated Queen Daenerys before – has hated her with a passion – but now, she cannot hate the Queen.

“Prince Jon, and Princess Sansa shall leave the feast at their own discretion so they can bed,” The Queen says, her voice low, as she meets Sansa’s eye. “Perhaps now is a perfect time for it.”

Jon stiffens beside her.

Sansa nods, for she is a soldier and soldiers know when to follow orders. Standing, she places her hand out to her husband and clears her throat. “My Lord?”

Jon looks up at her, more fear in his ears than she was sure he had own in battle, and she cannot help but smile.  _ I suppose I can be brave for the both of us. _

Jon stands, rather clumsily, and takes her hand. The court applauds, and yells their blessings, but Sansa pays them no heed.  _ Let them yell, and say my name. Let them pray for me. I am not theirs anymore. _

Jon’s room is dark, and cold.

Sansa looks around the room, barren and bare. There is armour sitting by the window, and some books that have been clumsily placed on a table. A map, with pieces. Cyvasse. The bed is full with furs, and the fire has been newly lit.

Something wet nudges against her hand, and Sansa looks down before she falls to her knees. “Ghost!”

Sansa has not seen a dire wolf since she was a girl, and she cannot help herself. There is no fear, no hesitation, when she kneels and begins to run her hands through his white fur – a broad smile on her face. He is a huge wolf – a sight tat Sansa imagines would induce fear in any warrior, but she can only see the pup that shared its bed with Lady.

“I almost forgot about you,” Sansa breathes, looking into his vibrant red eyes. “I can’t believe how big you are. Do you remember Lady, Ghost? Or Nymeria?”

Ghost blinks, his tongue rolling out of his mouth before he lunges forward and licks her face.

Sansa laughs, the sound bellowing through the room.

“Not many are that brave around ghost,” Jon admits, and his voice surprises Sansa.

She glances over her shoulder, and smiles, genuine. “You forget I’m a Stark.”

“No.” Jon chokes on his laugh. “No, I wish I could.”

Sansa’s smile fades, and her petting halts.

“I begged her not to do this,” Jon admits. “I begged her for anything but this.”

Sansa is still silent.

Jon’s eyes tighten, and his beard-clad jaw locks. He looks lost; a man wandering in a bottomless abyss of morals and greyness. “She told me … she told me Joanna would be taken if I was to refuse.”

“She would go North, and I would marry someone else,” Sansa supplemented, remembering the conversation she had with the Queen. “I know. She has told me.”

Surprise lights on eyes. “She did?”

Sansa nods. “Yes.

Hardness becomes him as he runs his hands through his hair. “I …  fuck.” Sansa has heard men curse before, but hearing it from Jon’s lips is foreign. He looks up, his eyes pained. “I hate this.”

Sansa laughs, breathless. “Me too.”

Jon comes to stand before her, and offers her his hand. Sansa looks at it, hesitantly, as the all too familiar fear crawls over her skin and consumes her. Her fear is a monster – the sword that cut her father’s head off, the hands that held her down while she was raped, the blood that crawled over her skin when she killed him. Her fear does not care for her tears, or for her wants; her fear is a monster, and monsters have no thought for their victims.

It must be on her face, for Jon drops his hand and shakes his head. “I will … we won’t … we won’t do this.”

Sansa looks up. “What?”

“I won’t’ rape you,” Jon says, shaking his head, over and over again. “I’m not a raper. And I’m your husband in name only.”

“Jon …” Sansa begins. “Jon, the Queen told me that we must conceive an heir-“

“Fuck the Queen,” Jon says, shaking his head as she turns away from her and moves to the fire. His anger radiates from him like the heat from the sun, and Sansa pushes herself up from the floor – looking at the man that she can now call her husband as she unclasps the Targaryen cloak from her shoulders and lets it drop the floor. “Fuck the court, fuck Westeros, fuck the crown. I care not for any of it. I …”

“Jon, you can’t say things like that,” Sansa says as she begins to pull pins from her hair. “The Queen says we can return to Winterfell if we conceive an heir-“

“I know!” Jon snaps, looking to her before regret consumes his features. “I did not mean to yell, I’m sorry.”

“That’s okay.”

Jon sighs, frustrated, before he moves closer to her. “I will get us Winterfell, Sansa. I will … we will return to Winterfell without ever having to … to … you won’t ever have to touch me.”

Sansa pulls the crown from her head, and places it on the table. “We are both not stupid, Jon. We both know …”

“There is still many wars to be won,” Jon says, shaking his head. “Once they are won, we shall worry about Winterfell. Until then, I shall not touch you.”

Sansa looks to the floor, relief flooding through her before fear creeps back in. “What do you mean there are many wars to be won?”

Jon is quiet, until he says, “Your husband truly told you nothing.”

Jon does not touch her that night. They do not even go to bed. Instead, Jon tells her of the North, and the war beyond the Wall, and Sansa wonders what has become of these lands she once knew. 


	10. The Small Cell

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Literally I am on a ROLL! Wow, all your comments were so lovely to read, I'll reply to some in the morning when I have some time. Thank you guys so much for all your feedback on my ideas - I'll definitely look into an update, and posting that Rhaegar/Lyanna fic. I love comments, so please don't feel shy - it's one of the best ways to motivate me for another chapter *wink wink*!

Jon’s words play on her mind in the days after their wedding.

Stories of monsters, and undead consume her as she plays with Joanna, and sits before the court. The war beyond the wall is all she can think about, whether she be dining or walking, sleeping and reading.

It is at dinner two nights after her wedding that Daenerys announces that Lords from Westeros will come to see the Lannister’s judged.

Sansa sits beside Jon, silent, as Daenerys talks of them all.

“And Lord Baelish will come from the Vale,” Prince Oberyn says, and Sansa cannot help the thrill that shoots through her as confusion consumes Daenerys’ face.

“Lord Baelish?” Daenerys asks. “Tell me again of …?”

“Lord Petyr is the stepfather to my cousin, Lord Arryn,” Sansa murmurs, watching as eyes land on her. Sansa suspects that most at the table before her have forgotten that Prince Jon’s wife attends for none have dared speak to her.

Even Jon stares at her, but there is no confusion in his eyes.

“And he was given Harrenhal as a reward for his loyalty to my late husband,” Sansa continues, bringing her cup to her lips. “He was also master of coin, when the Usurper ruled, and when my late husband ruled.”

“You know this man?” Daenerys asks, surprise coating her features. Sansa’s fists clench the napkin that lays on her lap, but she keeps her mask calm – inhaling deeply as she looks to the Queen, and her small council.

Sansa nods. “Yes.”

“Well?” Aegon prods, and Sansa looks to him, wondering if her annoyance if evident on her face.  Aegon is a man she knows little of, and yet she doesn’t think she shall ever learn much else.  _ A pauper wearing the cloth of princes does not make his blood any less common,  _ Sansa thinks, looking in disdain the man that sits at Daenerys right.

Sansa knows, of course, that she can never let her disdain for the man they believe Aegon to be known. If they believe the song that the fool has sung, who is she to dispel it? But there is something that angers her, something guttural and burning that consumes her, whenever Aegon speaks to her.

For Aegon does not speak to her as another Lord would speak to a lady. No, Aegon speaks to her like he would speak to a dog – sharp, and acidic. And yet he needn’t use such toxicity with the Queen, or her men.

“A little,” Sansa murmurs.

_ I know Lord Baelish would rather speak to me than any Targaryen,  _ Sansa thinks,  _ I know Lord Baelish loved my mother. I know Lord Baelish would rather have me on his arm than my poor Aunt. I know Lord Baelish cares nothing or dragons, or for their wants. I know Lord Baelish cares for nothing but his wants. _

“And is he amenable?” Daenerys asks, pushing her long white hair over her shoulder and stares at Sansa.

Sansa purses her lips, and offers nothing but a shrug. “I cannot judge, my Queen, what Lord Baelish shall be like when he comes to court.”

It is later, before Jon leaves Sansa’s rooms for his own, that he speaks.

“You know him.”

Sansa turns at his voice, staring at Jon with a fascination. “Lord Baelish?”

Jon nods.

“A little,” Sansa repeats the same from earlier, before she walks to her vanity in the rooms Daenerys has gifted her. They are far from the Hands tower, where Prince Oberyn now resides, and are also quite far from Jon’s rooms. And yet every night after they dine, Jon walks her to her rooms and hovers.

“They say he is smart,” Jon muses. “They say he is too smart.”

Sansa does not say anything at first, but then there is a nagging in the back of her mind.  _ If you cannot trust Jon, you can trust no one.  _ Sansa turns, looking up to her husband before she places her hands in her lap. “Jon, Lord Baelish is not amenable or kind, nor is he gentile. Lord Baelish is … dangerous.”

Jon’s brow furrow. “Dangerous?”

Sansa stands, feeling awkward standing before him. It has been like this for the past few days; a dance of awkwardness, and hesitance. Every word spoken is a question – hanging in a tense air. Sansa feels as if she is walking on shells, waiting for the moment they say something wrong.

Despite all they had spoken, the strangeness of their union can never be forgotten. Every time Sansa looks to Jon, she is reminded of the men she once knew – her father, her brothers, and even Arya. A man with grey eyes, with clear Starkness, is now her husband and Sansa feels like a Tully fish rather than a Stark wolf and she  _ hates  _ it. She hates feeling like the alien in her house, for it is a feeling she knows well.

“Our fat-  _ my  _ father died because of Lord Baelish,” Sansa says simply.

“How do you know-“

“Lord Tyrion told me,” Sansa says. “For all that the Queen wishes Tyrion to be as monstrous as his family, he is not – he told me everything that he knew when I was Queen.”

On is silent for a moment, his fists clenching at her words as they hang in the air. “He killed … he …”

Sansa bites her lip, and sighs. “But he is a great power, Jon. He has the Vale on his side, and the Vale is on  _ no one’s  _ side so we must keep him close-“

“You wish to keep close the man that is responsible for father’s death?” Jon says, his words coming out so rushed that Sansa doubts he has even noticed his mistake.

“No,” Sansa says, truthfully. “If I could truly do as I wanted to, I would have him hung from the highest tower at Winterfell. If I could truly do as I wanted, I would never have married Joffrey, or you for that matter. But I cannot do as I want, because I am a daughter of House Stark and not a son.”

“I will not have him near you,” Jon seethes. “He shall not come near you, or Joanna.”

Sansa scoffs. “Lord Baelish will want to see me, Jon. We can’t simply ignore that-“

“How can you be so calm?” Jon snaps, confusion becoming of his features. “How can you welcome the man that killed … that killed Eddard Stark to be anywhere near you?”

“Because I have learned to play this game of thrones,” Sansa snaps back, feeling a defensiveness claw up her throat and burst from her. Sansa knows he does not mean it, but his words are said with such sharpness that they feel like daggers and Sansa cannot have her husband attacking her for the simpleness of survival. “And if you, and your family wish to survive in this god forsaken place than you best begin to learn.”

“Sansa-“

“None of you,” Sansa begins, “none of you think to ask me for direction, until it is of use for your Queen. No one even spoke to me at dinner – gods, that man that pretends to call himself your brother speaks to me as if I am a bloody ornamental vase!”

Jon blinks, surprised at her outburst, but it does not sway her. “And Jon Connington thinks to speak of his knowledge of lands that he has not known for nigh on twenty years! Gods, I could wring that man’s neck – and Aegon’s, gods, I could wring Aegon until the breath was gone from his lungs if ever I had the chance.”

“Do none of the people on that small council realise that I know these lands better than  _ any  _ of you? That I have sat on the throne Daenerys now keeps warm, and I have watched as another ruled? I know every Lord, and Lady of these lands – every whisper that has been said about them, every mistake they have made, every bounty they wish theirs?”   

Sansa cannot help but laugh then – a bellowing, crazed laugh. “You come and sit on a throne you don’t know, reigning over Lords you don’t know, and you ask for people to love their Queen? A woman who knows nothing but warfare and the East? You can’t simply call yourself Queen and expect others to do the same.”

“Sansa-“

She is heaving by now, consumed with the words she has so wished to speak and has never been able to voice. “Soon enough the entire court will be full of spiders and serpents – Baelish, and Varys, and then you will truly hate the court, Jon, just as much as I do.”

It hits her then, how much she aches to hear what Tyrion would think of all this. “All I wish is to see Tyrion before they come – before he’s brought out in chains, and I cannot.”

“I already hate the court, Sansa,” Jon admits, his voice quiet and controlled. “I hate everything about it. I hate being a Prince. I hate riding a dragon. The only reason I even accepted Dany’s offer was because I …”

He has trailed off, his eyes narrowing at words he hasn’t spoken but Sansa will not let him stop. “What, Jon? What did she offer?”

“She offered me the Frey’s, and the Bolton’s. She offered me the North as well, but … that was never hers to give,” Jon says simply, his grey eyes shining as he meets Sansa’s gaze. “I thought if I had survived death and was brought back, I might as well serve justice to those that had wronged us.”

“Us?”

“Our family,” Jon says, shaking his head as a wry smile consumes his face. “What’s left of it.”

“You,” Sansa says, “and I, and Joanna.”

Jon nods, smiling, but the smile is not a true smile. Sansa wonders if they will ever truly smile again, when everything they once love has been lost.

They are just two ghosts trying to remember how to breathe in a world without air.

* * *

 

 

“You did not invite me to the wedding, my Princess.”

Sansa wears her biggest smile for Lord Baelish, for he knows how much he loves her smile. He commented on it, once, when she had passed him in the halls.

_ You have your mother's smile,  _ he had said, his fingers trailing in the air before her skin, as if she was a doll too fragile to touch.

It had been Tyron who had told her that Lord Baelish had been in love with Catelyn Tully. He had said it when he was deep in his cups, and had thrown the comment away as if Sansa already knew why Lord Baelish often stared.

“ _ But why would he love my mother? He didn’t even know her.”  _ Sansa had asked, puzzled.

“ _ Because little Lord Baelish was once a ward of your grandfathers,”  _ Tyrion had sung, laughing bitterly. “ _ He had even challenged your Uncle Brandon to a duel for your mother’s hand, or so the story goes.” _

“ _ And what happened?” _

Tyrion had laughed harder. “ _ Lord Baelish is said to have a very ugly set of scars.” _

_ “But- but why would he …”  _ Sansa had begun, confused about the attention the courtier had been paying her.

Tyrion had halted her, placing his small hand atop hers and said, “ _ You have been blessed, my dear Queen, for simply looking like your mother. Just smile when he speaks to you, and act like your mother, girl. Gods know Lord Baelish will never harm the hair on the head of a girl who looks so much like the ghost of Catelyn fucking Tully.” _

And so, even though Tyrion sits in a cell and she is no longer Queen, Sansa does as her closest friend had advised. She had found a gown of blue that her mother had so often favoured, and had wrapped her hair into a long braid – knowing how her mother had hated complicated southron styles and much preferred the practicality of a sturdy Riverlands braid.

“It was a rather rushed affair, my Lord,” Sansa says, their words being listened to by every member of court, it seemed. The Queen smiled, regally, from her seat on the iron throne and as protocol demanded, Lord Baelish had paid his due respects to the newest members of the royal family.

But it had been Sansa that he had turned to following his deep bow to each member, and it had been Sansa whose smile he so coveted. “I did so wish for my beloved Uncle, and Aunt to attend, and of course my cousin.”

Lord Baelish grins. “Young Lord Arryn is in fine health, you shall be glad to hear, my lady. He asks of you quite often since you last wrote to him. He also asks of Lady Joanna, and how she fares.”

Sansa smiles at the mention of her daughter. “Quite well, my Lord. She is in her lessons, but later I shall take you to her – I’m sure she’ll be delighted to see family.”

Sansa watches as Lord Baelish’s eyes shine with possession, and she feels her stomach clench with a sickness just at the sight of it. It’s then Jon steps down the steps beside her, and nods to Lord Baelish.

“Lord Baelish, this is my husband,” Sansa says, smiling to Jon. “Prince Jon of Summerhall.”

“My Lord,” Lord Baelish says with a rather shallow bow. “I have heard great things of your bravery in battle.”

“I learned from the man who raised me,” Jon bites out, his face cold.

Lord Baelish chuckles. “Well, yes, Lord Stark was a fine fighter. Starks are, of course.”

It is when the Queen further speaks to Lord Baelish that Jon leans towards Sansa, and whispers in her ear, “Dany will let you see Tyrion.”

Sansa looks to him in surprise, before a smile bursts onto her lips. “When?”

“Tonight.”

Sansa is led by a guard to the dungeons beneath the Keep. The entire walk is silent, and all she can think of is how her father must have felt, being kept down here. Sansa had never been to the dungeons before, and so when she steps down the final step, she cannot help but look around and take in the stone walls and the darkness.

It is cold, and unwelcoming, and Sansa knows how easily it must incite fear.

_ You must have been so scared, Papa. _

Tyrion sits with his back to the wall when she is brought before his cell. Gone are the fine doublets, and jewels; instead, he sits cold and amongst straw.

“Tyrion,” Sansa says as she enters, pushing past the guard as she goes to him.

Tyrion looks up, surprise coating his features before Sansa sweeps him up in an embrace – hugging him tightly, and fiercely. Sansa pulls back, looking at him closely. His hair is matted, and he seems to have another scar on his face.  _ It has joined my collection,  _ he would say, if he wasn’t imprisoned.

“Have you been treated well?” Sansa asks, sitting before him as she beckons for the guard to come forward. “I have brought you some wine, and a plate form the feast.”

“Sansa,” Tyrion breathes, as if cannot believe she is real.

“As soon as Jon told me I could come, I came,” Sansa rambles as she sets the food, and wine before him. “I have been begging to see you for weeks, but they have barely let me out of my room.”

“I-“ Tyrion blinks, before he shakes his head and grasps her hand. “Have they … how is … is Joanna-“

Tyrion cannot finish, for his voice cracks and Sansa can hear the pain within his words. “She is safe.”

Relief is like cold water, poured over Tyrion’s mutilated features and wiping the grief from his face. “Thank the Gods.”

“I thought we did not believe in the Gods,” Sansa murmurs, and Tyrion looks up, his red rimmed eyes crinkling in amusement.

“She is truly safe?” Tyrion asks. “And what of Tommen, and- and Myrcella? Is she still in Dorne?”

Sansa nods, hurried as she pushes the wine into Tyrion’s hands. “She is still in Dorne. Prince Oberyn has become a de facto hand, until everything has become … more stable.”

“And Tommen?” Tyrion implores.

“In the dungeons,” Sansa says, pained. “To be put on trial.”

“Gods,  _ no _ ,” Tyrion despairs, his face folding in grief before Sansa shakes her head to console him.

“But he shall be fine, Tyrion, I know it,” Sansa rushes out. “Jon says the trials are just a farce – that those who will die have already been chosen. The trial will just delegitimize him and give him the name Waters and- and if he swears allegiance, then he shall be spared.”

Tyrion’s breath fractures, and Sansa looks to the guard for the cold has begun to seep through the cracks in the walls. “Did we bring a blanket?”

The guard shakes his head, and so Sansa unbuckles her coat from her shoulders, before she wraps it over Tyrion’s shoulders. Her gown is made of wool, and so she knows it shall keep her warm.

_ Tyrion looks like he is already dying,  _ Sansa thinks,  _ he looks like a ghost of the man I once knew, and it has barely even been a month. What have they done to him down here? What has he become, under their cruelty and negligence? _

“And you shall be safe,” Sansa whispers. “Jon has told me that as well. I will speak at your trial, and will give evidence about how you helped lead the Queen to her crown.”

“But I did-“

“You did,” Sansa says with a nod, silencing him before he could give the ears any more ammunition. “You gave me every piece of information you had, and we ensured that the false King was brought down. We both are for Queen Daenerys, and have been for a very long time.”

Tyrion studies her as he takes a hesitant sip of his wine, an uncertainty about him that Sansa has never seen on his face. It is quiet for a moment, as they both come to terms with the words shared, before Tyrion asks a question Sansa hadn’t even thought to anticipate, “Has Joff already been killed?”

Sansa swallows her confusion, before realising that no one has told him. “They did not tell you?”

Tyrion shakes his head.

“Tyrion,” Sansa murmurs, her stomach twisting in pain as she remembers that night. She remembers it all so clearly then – the blood that had stuck to her skin, the sword that was not sharp enough, the cuts on her hands from the hilt that she had grasped so tightly. She remembered it all then – like a dream from another life that seemed so distantly, and yet so close. “Tyrion, I killed Joffrey.”

Tyrion stares at her with those mismatched eyes, before a smile stretches across his face and a loud laugh bursts from his mouth, like lava from the tip of a volcano. The joy is as bright as the sun on a cloudless, summer day, and Sansa had to laugh with him – for if they don’t laugh, it is just awful.

“How?” Tyrion laughs, taking another sip of his wine before he shovels some sweet bread into his mouth, ravenous.

“With my father's sword,” Sansa admits, and suddenly they are both laughing – hard, and bellowing, and hysterical. “He- he-“ Sansa tries to catch her breath between laughs, but all she can see is Tyrion’s eyes crinkling as he heaves with his heavy laughs. “His head wouldn’t come off, so I had to hack!”

Tyrion snorts with further laughter, before he meets Sansa’s eyes and their laughter become quieter before the dungeon is quiet again.

“Are you alright?” Tyrion asks, grasping her hand in between his sticky hands.

Sansa smiles, before she can no longer see – tears blurring her vision as the weight of the past weeks come down upon her. Sansa tastes salt on her lips as she shakes her head, and pulls her hands from Tyrion’s – trying to silence her sobs.  Sansa feels like she is always crying – always weeping for what once was, what could have been, and what now is.

_ I wish I was empty of tears, and grief. I wish I was empty of pain, and empty smiles. I wish I simply empty of it all. _

“There is much to tell you,” Sansa whispers, wiping the tears from her cheeks.

“Go on, then,” Tyrion says, jutting his chin out. “Tell it quickly.”

And so, Sansa tells her dearest friend everything.

Sansa expects outrage from the man that sits before, or at least shock and yet there is nothing of the such to be seen on his face. Instead, Tyrion simply sits quiet as she recounts the past few weeks with a fractured voice and a sore throat, and remains patient as she tells him everything.

He is different from the man she has sat with for so many hours before – the man she has plotted with, argued with, laughed with. And yet he is exactly the same; pensive, serious, and so intelligent.

Once she is done, and her tears are dried, Tyrion does not lecture on the outrage of it all, or offer false words of pity. Tyrion simply shakes his head, and laughs, before he says, “It sounds like our new Queen has a mind on her.”

Sansa drops her head, and shakes it. “Of course you should compliment her on her mind.”

“The marriage is not so bad,” Tyrion decides. “Fucking him will be a nightmare for you Starks, but you can deal with marrying your brother.”

“Cousin,” Sansa corrects, feeling sick.

“Does it matter?” Tyrion drawls. “I am a Lannister; he is a Targaryen – we are all obsessed with marrying our fucking siblings.” A laugh bursts from Sansa’s lips, before Tyrion sighs and pats her hand. “Jon Snow seems an honourable man, unlike your last husband, may he rot in all seven hells. I would not fear a man who is honest, or who will not touch you. And from what I can remember, even if Jon Snow knew he had a cock I doubt he would know where to place it.”

Sansa shakes her head as she smiles. “You shouldn’t joke-“

“And then where would we be?” Tyrion asks.

He is right, of course.

_ The Lannister’s were cruel. They took away everyone I loved, and then did something even more awful. They gave me a child. They gave me something I know I cannot lose, for fear of destruction. They gave me a love I had not felt. And they knew, when they placed that babe in my arms, that I would forever act on her behalf. But Jon does not even think to touch me – Jon does not think to hurt me. _

A smile creeps onto Sansa’s face as she stares at Tyrion, before she says, “I don’t know how I’ve been without you these past weeks.”

Tyrion chuckles. “It seems you’ve done fine, my Queen.”

“Shh,” Sansa says. “I am no Queen.”

“If you say so,” Tyrion says, before the door to the cell is opened and the guard returns.

“It is time to leave the prisoner, my Princess,” The guard says, but Sansa does not pay him any heed.

Pressing two kisses to Tyrion’s cheeks, she passed four small rolls wrapped in one of her scarfs to him before she stands. “I shall come to see you again, before your trial. And I shall ask they give you more wine.”

Tyrion smiles brightly. “You know me well, my  _ Princess. _ ”

Sansa smiles, before Tyrion clears his throat and says, “Sansa?”

“Yes?” She asks, turning before she leaves.

“Keep smiling,” Tyrion says simply. “Your face is not meant to be without one.”

“You are in a cell,” Sansa snaps, rolling her eyes, “and you have not changed one  _ ounce _ !”

Tyrion’s laughter follows Sansa as she escorted from the cell.

 

* * *

 

 

Joanna’s hand is firmly in hers when they encounter the Queen in the gardens.

“Princess,” Queen Daenerys says, and Joanna looks up, thinking the Queen is talking to her.

“No, my love,” Sansa murmurs, placing her hand on her daughter’s shoulder as she returns the Queen's smile and dips into a curtsy, pulling Joanna down with her. “Your grace.”

“I hear the Prince declined to hunt with his brother the Prince Aegon,” Queen Daenerys says. “Has he always been this sour, my Lady?”

“The Prince has always been solemn,” is all Sansa can say.

“I would think he would be little less solemn now that he has the most coveted women in Westeros as his bride,” Daenerys says with a broad smile.

“I believe that is you, your grace,” Sansa says simply the falseness of the complement poisonous on her tongue.  

Daenerys laughs, but it does not seem to reach her eyes, before she looks to where Joanna stands, fidgeting with the hem of her coat. “Lady Joanna?”

Joanna looks up, her eyes wide as she is addressed by the white Queen. Sansa watches as her babe wraps her arms around her leg, and retreats into her skirts, shy. Sansa places her hand at the back of Joanna’s head, and clicks her tongue, “Joanna, you must say hello to the Queen.”

“No, no,” Queen Daenerys says, “it is quite alright. Strangers are scary, I know.”

Sansa smiles hesitantly, running her hands over her daughter’s braid. “She has become shy as of late. I think it is with all the change.”

Dany nods. “Yes, I can imagine.”

They stand in silence, before Daenerys motions to the gardens. “Shall we walk, my lady?”

“I-“

“Sansa.”

Sansa turns at the sound of her name, and sees Jon walking towards them. The sour prince the Queen had been talking about just moments prior walks towards them with a frown on his face, Ghost following on his footsteps.

“Prince Jon,” The Queen says, nodding. “I was just asking your wife if she would like to walk.”

“Why?” Jon asks, coming to stand before them with ghost hovering on the sidelines. Sansa watches, curiously, as the large wolf stares at Joanna – his red eyes quizzical as he sniffs the air.

Sansa can hear them talking, but she pays no mind to it as Joanna’s grip on Sansa’s skirts loosens and she begins to walk towards Ghost.

“No, Anna,” Sansa says, pulling Joanna back towards her and swooping down to pick her up.

“Why?” Joanna asks, confused.

“Because the wolf is not used to little girls, and he may not like you just yet,” Sansa says simply, turning back to the Queen and her husband.

Jon has finished talking to the Queen, and she is picking up her skirts. “Princess Sansa, I shall like to dine with you later this week, if that is agreeable?”

Sansa nods. “Yes, your grace.”

Dany nods, smiling before she turns and returns on her walk through the gardens. Whatever Jon had said to the Queen was enough to make her depart their presence, and in a hurry, too. Sansa looks to Jon, silence a heavy blanket that hangs in the air over them. But Jon is not looking at Sansa – instead, he is looking at Joanna in her arms and suddenly it dawns on Sansa that Jon has yet to be introduced to her babe as anything other than the Prince.

“Joanna,” Sansa says simply, running her hands over her daughter’s wild hair. “Joanna, you know Prince Jon, yes?”

Joanna nods. “The Prince of Summerhall.”

Jon cringes at the title. “Well,” Sansa continues, “remember how I told you that I married Prince Jon?”

Joanna nods.

“Well, that makes him your stepfather,” Sansa says simply, looking to Jon as he watches them.

Joanna looks to Jon, her small face a little confused, before she turns back to Sansa for reassurance. Sansa smiles, saying, “Ghost is Prince Jon’s wolf, actually, and I’m sure if you ask very nicely, Jon will be happy to introduce you.”

“Really?” Joanna asks, her eyes wide as she turns to Jon. “Will he like me?”

Jon seems surprised that Joanna is even talking to him, but he smiles and nods, “Yes, of course he will. I think it would be very hard for him not to, actually.”

Sansa smiles, placing Joanna on the ground before she watches Jon’s smile broaden. She has not seen him like this. Only in her memories does Jon smile as widely as he does now, for the small girl before them.

Jon leads Joanna to Ghost, who he commands to sit before them. There is a rumbling of fear that commands Sansa’s attention deep within her, but she knows the wolves and she knows that wolves would never hurt Starks or disobey their masters.

_ And Joanna is too much of a Stark for Ghost to ever turn on. _

Jon coaxes Joanna forward, with soft, encouraging words, guiding her small hand to Ghosts white fur.

“There you go,” Jon says, his voice low and gentle. “See, he likes you.”

“Mama!” Joanna cries out, a beaming smile consuming her face as she turns to look at Sansa. “Mama, look, he likes me!”

“Yes, my love” Sansa says, looking to Jon, “yes, he does.” 


	11. The Agreement

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AND LOOK WHO IS ON A THREE (?) DAY STREAK? THIS BITCH RIGHT HERE! To be fair, I have had the last few days off so it's been a bit easier. 
> 
> I wouldn't expect another update for a couple of days, though, as I'm back to work tomorrow! But enjoy - leave comments, god knows they are the only good thing about my day at work! 
> 
> I'm a bit nervous about this chapter, but the next chapter will be the one most of you guys are hanging for. I'll leave it at that!

Cersei Lannister has changed.

For all that Sansa had known the once Queen, she has never seen the lioness of House Lannister like this. Cersei is dragged through the Grand Hall, a hall she once commanded, in a long tunic. Her long golden hair that Sansa once emulated in style is now matted, and dirty, filled with weeks of grime.

_ I should be happy,  _ Sansa thinks, for the sight before her is everything she has ever wished for. Cersei Lannister has been the root to every sorrow Sansa has felt in her time in King's Landing. Seemingly, every time Cersei mentioned Sansa’s name Cersei would cause immeasurable pain the be inflicted upon her.

Sometimes, when Sansa would reap what Cersei had sown, Sansa would imagine that one day, Cersei Lannister would know what Eddard Stark had known. When Sansa would remember, what had become of her father, and how she had screamed for mercy, Sansa would seethe through her tears and imagine that one day, Cersei Lannister would know the same pain as Sansa had.

Sansa had spent so many days thinking of her family, and what the Lannister’s had done to them. First, it had been her father – her poor father, whose honour and goodness led him to the chopping block, and to his head being taken from his body. Sansa could still see the way the blood had spurted from him; the moment Ice had met the nape of his neck. Sansa could still hear herself screaming; the ringing in her ears never leaving her form the guttural screech that left her lips that day on the steps of Baelor.

And then it had been Robb. Robb, the boy who had once given her a crown of winter roses in a pretend tourney. Robb, who would chase her through the crypts. Robb, who would always laugh at when she did, and who always smiled when she smiled. If Jon was Arya’s, Robb was Sansa’s and they had  _ murdered  _ him while he broke bread.

Sansa can see it, despite never having truly known the sight of that night. Sansa can hear her mother’s screams. They say, after all, that her mother had begged Lord Frey to spare her son. Catelyn Tully had plead for mercy, just as Sansa had once begged for mercy for her father, only to have a dagger put to her neck and her body thrown in the river.

It has been years, since she was told what had happened to her family, but the rage that she feels has never lessened. It is a fire that burns within her, setting alight what it left of her heart and lungs. Every memory that she has of them is marred by the knowledge of what they became; corpses.

Sansa cannot think of her family without thinking of what horrors they have faced. When Sansa thinks of her father, she wonders where his bones are, for Joffrey had once laughed and told her that his bones were given to the hounds. When Sansa thinks of her mother, she thinks of the way she screamed before they cut her throat, and what pain she would have felt at seeing the way they killed her son.

When Sansa thinks of Robb, she thinks Grey Wind, and how they had sewn his head onto his body. When Sansa thinks of Arya, she can only wonder what horrors her sister has faced. Sansa wonders if it would be worse if she was to know what became of the girl she once bickered with, but she thinks not. Sansa has spent years imagining what became of her; if she was raped before killed, or mayhaps kept as a pet for a soldier.  _ I have been left to imagine the pain my sister has felt, and all I can think of are her screams., _

And then there is Bran, and Rickon – her sweet, loving brothers, who were just children.  _ Burned alive,  _ Sansa recalls being told by her husband, who had smiled when he had delivered the news. Sansa has imagined, time and time again, about the fear Bran must have felt.  _ He couldn’t even run. _

And Rickon … Rickon was just a little older than Joanna.

The suffering her family has endured is more painful to Sansa than any of her beatings, or scars.

_ For to wonder about the pain those you love have suffered is to hear their screams. _

The fire burns within her, burning through her lungs and throat. Sansa feels ablaze by her rage like never before. Sansa wants to scream, and walk towards the woman who has been the root of so much in her life. Sansa wants to take the sword at Jon’s side, and cut Cersei down, but she knows she could never do that.

_ While things have changed, I am still the same as I always was. A pretty little caged songbird. _

“Cersei Lannister,” Prince Oberyn begins,

“I, Daenerys of the House Targaryen, first of my name, Queen of the Andals, the Rhoynar, and the First Men, Protector of the Realm, Queen of Meereen, Khaleesi of the Great Green Sea and Lady of the Seven Kingdoms do hereby open this trial and sit as judge. With me, is Prince Oberyn of the House Martell, Hand to the Queen, Prince Jon, the Prince of Summerhall, and Lord Petyr Baelish of Harrenhal. If found guilty, may the gods punish the accused justly.”

Sansa watches as Prince Aegon shifts on his feet, before he says something to Jon Connington who stands at his side. There is a shrill sense of satisfaction that settles over Sansa, and has been since Jon had told her that Prince Aegon had not been selected as a judge.

“Cersei, of the House Lannister, you stand accused by various parties of crimes against the crown, adultery and treason. What say you? Are you guilty, or innocent?”

“Tell me of my son,” Cersei spits, her green eyes flaring. “Where is he?”

Sansa’s grip on the railing of the gallery tightens, and her heart begins to race.  _ So no one has told her. _

Daenerys simply smiles.

“The false King Joffrey Waters died on the night of the invasion,” The Queen says simply.

Cersei is a lion, and so she roars with grief.

The sound almost makes Sansa turn from the Grand Hall in disgust, for she knows the scream well. It is the same noise that left her mouth on the day her father was killed. Sansa had dreamt, so often, of killing Cersei Lannister, and yet the sight before her gives her more satisfaction than any bloodshed would.

_ She cries as I have,  _ Sansa thinks, her chest filling with the thrill of Cersei Lannister’s sobs,  _ she weeps as I have. She grieves as I have. Mayhaps I shall laugh, as she once did to me? _

Sansa knows it is not lady like to smile when another cries, and yet she cannot keep the smile from her face. For Cersei Lannister has been the knife that has stabbed her, the fire that has burned her and the hands that have forced her down as she was raped. Sansa remembers how the Queen had once offered her a scarf, so that she might cover her bruises.

_ This woman has destroyed my life and yet she cries as if she has a monopoly on pain? _

The rage is building, faster now, and Sansa can barely stand to look at the woman that is slowly losing her mind below her.

“Who!?” Cersei howls, her hands coming to her face as she screams, “WHO KILLED THE KING?”

_ Me,  _ Sansa wants to scream so that she can see the look on Cersei Lannister’s face when she tells her that the girl who she had once laughed at, the girl she had called her little dove, the girl she had sold to her son and watched as he butchered her skin, had been the one to wield the sword when the Stranger called,  _ I killed the King. _

But it is not Sansa Stark that says it.

It is her husband.

“Sansa, of Houses Stark and Targaryen, killed the false King,” Prince Jon sneers, baring his teeth. The anger that Sansa feels within her seems to be nothing compared to the fury that burns on Jon’s face, and Sansa sees, now, the dragon that they all seem to call him. He rages like the fire from a dragon’s mouth, and Sansa, for a moment, cannot see the man she had married.

“KINGSLAYER!” Cersei screeches. “KINGSLAYER!”

“Quiet, or we shall muzzle you,” Prince Oberyn snaps, his eyes narrowing at Cersei. “I should not think a Lannister would care to call another a Kingslayer.”

Cersei screams, and Sansa begins to wonder if the windows will shake with her fury.

“You should be happy to know, my Lady Lannister, that the false King did not have anything done to him that he did not do unto House Stark,” Jon spits, his hatred for the Lannister’s so evident it is almost acidic.

Cersei continues to scream, and Sansa watches, with clenched hands and a bright rage within her, as the trial continues.

The trials take days, stretching over the crimes the Lannister’s have committed against individuals and the crown. Sansa watches, as always, from the gallery as members of the family she was once a part of were accused of atrocities. Sansa cares nothing for Cersei’s screams, or Tywin's silent sombreness – if anything, she is determined to stay until their verdict is read out to them.

It takes only one day to determine both of their fates, and Sansa stands still when they are sentenced to death. It is everything she had once imagined, and yet everything is so different from how her mind had once conjured it.

It is later, when she is having her dinner with Joanna, that Jon tells her.

“Dany has asked that you do not attend the trials of Tyrion, Tommen or Jaime.”

“What?” Her head swirls, and with it, her control. “No, I have to be there.”

Jon looks pained when he says, “She does not wish for you to be there.”

“Why?” Sansa barks. “Why can I not?”

Jon looks to his wife, before he glances to Joanna, who is watching the exchange with wide eyes. “Mayhaps we can speak of this later, Sansa.”

“No,” Sansa snaps. “No, I want to know why I am cannot be there. I want to know what she plans to do to them.”

Jon’s jaw locks. “I do not know her reasoning, Sans-“

“Then tell me what you suspect,” Sansa pleads, shaking her head. “Jon … I … I cannot let them be alone.”

“They would not even see you …”

“It would not matter if they saw me or not!” Sansa says, shaking her head. “I would simply be there, to see how they fare. The Queen has only let me see Tyrion twice, and yet has barred me from both Jaime’s cells and Tommen’s.”

“Jaime is a Kingslayer-“

“-and so am I, if we are to have this argument,” Sansa says. “Jon … he is a good man.”

Jon closes his eyes, inhaling sharply before he sighs and looks to Joanna. “Joanna, can you please go and check if Ghost is sleeping by the fire? I haven’t seen him for a little while.”

Joanna’s eyes light up, and she nods. “Yes, Jon!”

Sansa watches as her daughter hurries to the next room, before she looks to Jon in desperation for information. “So?”

“Jaime is to die, Sansa,” Jon says simply, shaking his head. “I’m sorry.”

“Not even a trial?” Sansa asks, her eyes wide. “He will not … he will not even be granted a trial?”

“No,” Jon says, “he will have a trial. But the court will not be in attendance, neither will they be in attendance for Tyrion’s or Tommen’s.”

Sansa’s mind buzzes with what this could mean, before it begins to conure scenarios of bloodshed and executions. Sansa reaches out, and grasps Jon’s hand, desperate for him to tell her that what she thinks is wrong.

“And Tyrion?” Sansa asks. “What of Tyrion and Tommen?”

Jon’s grey eyes break her gaze, and look away. Sansa can feel herself begin to become consumed with that rage she had felt earlier. Her breathing becomes harder, and the air seems thinner. Even her eyes seem to strain as she watches Jon’s lips open, and simply say, “I’m sorry.”

“No,” Sansa rasps. “No.”

“Sansa,” Jon stands, for Sansa has pushed herself up and has wretched her hand from his. “Sansa, I’m sorry.”

“Why did you not tell me?” Sansa asks, feeling like that girl again – the girl that had been promised a father, and who was given a headless body in return. All the empty promises, and every betray flows back to her – the feeling of such treachery flooding through her and tainting every thought. “I thought- I thought I could  _ trust  _ you.”

Jon steps forward, reaching for her. “I was only just told, Sansa.”

“No!” Sansa snaps, “No, don’t you  _ dare  _ touch m-“ 

“Mama?”

Sansa looks to where Joanna stands, confusion coating her features as she holds onto Ghosts’ white fur. Swallowing her anger, and every word of rage, Sansa walks to where Joanna stands and grabs her hand from Ghosts fur. “Come and finish your dinner with Jon, sweetling. Mama must go see the Queen.”

“Sansa-“

Sansa glares at him as she says, “If you cannot solve this problem, I will.”

“She will not see you!” Jon says, his eyes narrowing as she places Joanna in her seat. “I have tried reasoning with her already – she says she does not see the need for a Lannister line of the seed of Tywin's.”

“I just want to try,” Sansa says, ignoring him as he followed her. Glancing over her shoulder, she says, “Let me try, and if I fail, I have failed. But let me try?”

Jon’s face seems tormented, before he slowly nods. “Okay.”

 

* * *

 

“Princess Sansa!” The Queen says, smiling as she enters. “I did not expect you tonight. I thought we were having dinner on the morror?”

“My Queen,” Sansa says, sinking into a low curtsy before she rises. “We were, your grace, but- but something has been brought to my attention and I realised I must speak with you.”

Dany cocks a brow. “Oh?”

Sansa takes a hesitant step forward, and looks around the room. She knows it well, of course – she had spent many nights in the King's chambers.  _ These walls have heard many of my screams,  _ she thinks, her stomach churning almost painfully before she looks to the new Queen that stands before her.

Sansa has always known Daenerys Stormborn is beautiful, but now, stripped of all jewels and fine gowns, she is remarkably small. Sansa towers over her petite frame, and even so there are only few years between them, and yet it seems like there are decades that stretch between them.

_ We are not so different,  _ Sansa thinks,  _ both Queens. Both forced into marriages. Both fighting a war we never wanted. _

“Jon told me,” Sansa begins, “that you plan to execute Tywin’s line.”

Realisation crossed Daenerys’s face, and she sighs. “I asked him not to-“

“Your grace,” Sansa says, stepping forward as she falls on her knees. “I am beseeching you to not kill Lord Tyrion, or Tommen Waters.”

Daenerys’ purses her lips.

“They are not evil, your grace,” Sansa says simply. “There is not a wicked bone in either body, I assure you. When I was beaten by the false King's guards, it was Lord Tyrion that would speak for me. When I was raped, it was Lord Tyrion that would see me in the morning and order for herbs that would make it better. He gave me information, and passed messages of your coming –  _ he,  _ not I, is the reason the city was surrendered. Lord Tyrion may seem awful, or mayhaps you have heard that he is, but he was kind and fair and when others laughed at my tears he would help me.”

Daenerys sighs. “Princess-“

“My name is Sansa,” Sansa murmurs. “I am no Princess, not here, not now. Not when I am asking you for this, your grace. Tommen is just a child – barely even a man, really. He is sweet, and kind, and he loves kittens. Both are neither dangerous nor resistant – they would never think to raise arms against you and-“

“Sansa.”

Her name on the Queen’s lips is soft, and foreign. Sansa is so used to hearing titles that hearing her true name, simple and small, is like drowning after a drought.

Daenerys motions upwards, for her to stand, and then goes to a table. “Wine?”

“Please,” Sansa says. “Thank you.”

Daenerys nods, before she sits, her violet eyes meeting Sansa’s blue. “You are asking me to leave my reign open to rebellion.”

Sansa opens her mouth to protest, but Daenerys raises her hand to silence her. “I understand that you love Lord Tyrion, and Tommen. And I understand that they may be sweet, and kind. But they are from the seed of a man who slaughtered my family – who murdered babes, and who brought horror to all those my family loved.”

“And so you cut down the tree for the seeds deformity?” Sansa asks. “You punish a family for few member’s sins?”

Daenerys looks to the floor, biting her lip. She seems not like a Queen then, but simply the girl she is. “I do not want to kill anyone. Truly. I was never the one who wanted vengeance, really – that was my brother. But I have learned, Sansa, just as you have, that I cannot act on my own wants but I must act on what the country needs.”

“It needs mercy,” Sansa whispers. “They will not think you weak for mercy, your grace. There is courage in being merciful.”

“Your Father was merciful,” Daenerys says, sadly. “Lord Baelish told me that your father gave Cersei Lannister a moment to escape, before he told the King of her children’s true parentage.”

“My father was an _honourable_ man,” Sansa snaps. “You cannot justify your actions by looking to his.”

Daenerys sighs, before she shakes her head. “You are too like Jon.”

“Excuse me?” Sansa asks, confused.

Daenerys laughs. “When he first came to our camp, this man who had no family and had the name of a bastard, he had the sourest face of any soldier I had ever seen. It was not until we found his connection with Rhaegal, and we were contacted by this crannogman that we found out who he truly was. And when we told him, he kept saying that ‘his father was a man of honour and no man of honour would lie like this’.”

Sansa purses her lips, wringing her hands over the fabric of her skirts. “Your grace-“

“If I am to call you Sansa than you can call me Dany,” Dany says with a small smile. “At least in private.”

A ghost of a smile stretches onto Sansa’s face, and she nods. “Dany … I am asking as  _ kin _ for mercy.”

Dany sighs, before she goes quiet – taking a sip of her wine and looking to Sansa. Her violet eyes hold so many secrets, secrets that Sansa is sure she will never be privy to learning, and yet there is also an uncertainty that burns within them – a constant doubt that Sansa has seen within the Queen's face since she had first met her.  _ Sometimes, she acts as if she is surprised to be Queen. _

“As kin,” Dany repeats. “Truly, as kin?”

Sansa nod. “By the laws of marriage-“

“Your marriage is not a true one,” Dany begins, cocking her head to the side. Fear blossoms within the depths of Sansa’s gut, and she leans back in the chair that Dany had offered her, wondering what the Queen could mean.

But of course, Sansa knows what the Queen means – she knows what the implications of the Queen's words are. And Sansa also knows that to deny the Queen, and insist that her marriage is a true one, that she would lose any trust the Queen had in her.

Sansa looks to her hands, and Dany sighs. “You have not consummated the marriage.”

Sansa closes her eyes, her heart a hummingbird in her chest before she grits out, “Prince Jon and I have not lied together, no.”

“Why?” Dany asks.

Sansa opens her eyes, shaking her head as she opens her mouth to explain. And yet the words are heavy in her mouth – tight balls in her throat that cannot make it past her lips. Sansa wants to tell the Queen that she cannot lie with her  _ brother.  _ No matter his blood, Jon Snow is a man that her father called son, and had them call brother. Even her own siblings preferred Jon to her, and Sansa always had known so.

To Targaryen’s, it is not so odd to know your brother carnally and yet to her – a Stark – it is the most carnal of sins. The Old Gods would have her strung, from heart tree to heart tree, if she was to ever enter into a carnal relationship with one of her brothers and yet this is what the Queen asks her to do.

_ But he is not truly your brother,  _ a voice whispers in the back of her mind, so smug that Sansa wants to suffocate it.

_ No,  _ she thinks,  _ but he is more Stark than I have ever been. He has the eyes of the North, and the darkness of my father. My father would call me a fish, and the North would call Jon a true northern wolf. He is more Northern than I am, a trueborn daughter of House Stark, and the Queen thinks I can even stomach lying with him? _

“He is my brother,” Sansa chokes out. “He is … he is my brother.”

Dany shakes her head, and pours more wine into Sansa’s cup. “Please. Drink.”

Sansa takes a sip of the wine, and tries to steady her breathing.  _ Control,  _ she thinks,  _ be iron. Be steel. Be winter. You are not the girl Sansa Stark once was. You are a Queen. You are a Princess. You are no weeping woman.  _

“It is alright, to not like it,” Dany says simply. “I know it must seem … grotesque.” Sansa cannot nod, for it almost seems like a betrayal to admit that sharing a bed with Jon has led her to heave with sickness. “I know I am asking much of you, but the marriage was what had to be done. Just as these men must die.”

“No-“

Dany holds her hand up once more, silencing Sansa. For all that Sansa has been brave to come here, she will never push the kindness that the Queen has shown her.  _ For while she may be kind to me now, it can change and I must think of my babe.  _ “I cannot,  _ cannot,  _ in good faith, allow a man who is thought to be the son of the Usurper to ever live.”

Sansa bows her head, taking the hit with a grit.  _ Poor, poor Tommen.  _ “He is just a child, your grace. He is no monster.”

“You could say similar things of the false King,” Dany says with a small frown. “But monster seems to light a word for a man like that.”

Sansa breathes deeply, imagining herself as a marble statue in the crypts of Winterfell, before she steels herself and meets Daenerys eyes. “I am begging you, your grace, to reconsider.”

Daenerys is silent for a moment, before she nods. “Okay. I shall consider the notion that Tommen Waters be sent to take the black rather than be executed. And on the matter of Lord Tyrion, I believe I can concede.”

Sansa inhales sharply. “What?”

“However, I must ask something of you,” Daenerys says simply.

“Anything,” Sansa assures her.

Daenerys nods, before saying slowly, “I will allow Lord Tyrion to live, but you will no longer avoid Prince Jon. If I am to be merciful, then you shall be obedient and you will allow your husband to get a child on you.”

Sansa’s breath fractures as the severity of the Queen's words wash over her. “Your grace … I …”

“This is the mercy you are asking for,” Daenerys says. “And it is a great ask. So, I am asking you to do something great – something you have already sworn to me that you would do. This House is dying, and I need new heirs. Children will restore faith in our House.”

Sansa looks to the floor, feeling a sickness swell in her stomach before beginning to stretch over her entire body. “I-“

“And if I find that you have not been sharing your husband's bed, as you did on the night of your wedding, my mercy will run out, Sansa,” Daenerys says, her eyes narrowing. “Do you understand? Everything Prince Jon has promised you will not come – there is no way I am letting you leave this city to return North without a child of Jon’s seed in your arms. And if I have been deceived once more, it is not you who shall suffer - it is Joanna that shall be sent North, as I have already promised.”

“He will not even touch me,” Sansa says, panicked as she tries to say anything that she can to assure the Queen that she cannot, and will not, lay with her husband. “He still sees me as his sister.”

“I will speak to Prince Jon if he does not comply,” Dany says simply. “And there shall be no trouble.”

There is something in the way that the Queen speaks that forces Sansa to keep her mouth shut. If there is anything Sansa knows how to do, it is to survive.

“This is the only way they shall live?” Sansa asks, her voice cracking at the thought of what she must do.

Dany nods, a frown coming over her lips. “It is a simple ask, Sansa. And they need not lose their heads because you could not do as you have vowed.”

Sansa looks to her fingers, where the ring from her wedding lays, and she feels her heart clenching. She can already taste the bile on her tongue, but Sansa finds herself nodding frantically as she agrees to save the two men she has lived with for so long.

“Okay,” Sansa says. “I shall do it.”

Dany smiles, brightly. “Brilliant. I shall have Sir Barristan stand outside your door tonight.”

“Tonight?” Sansa screeches, her lungs puncturing with her panic. “So soon?”

“Best to start soon,” Dany says simply, “as we do not know how long it will take for a seed to plant.”

Sansa’s stomach churns as she stands, her legs unsteady as she begins to walk to the door.

“Oh, and Sansa?”

Sansa turns, feeling her stomach heaving with a sickness so vile she thinks she might pass out on the Queen's floor. “Yes?”

“You never did ask to save the Kingslayer,” Dany says, cocking a brow. “Jon says you were fond of him.”

Sansa looks to the door as she says, “I’m not fool enough to think any word of mine would save him.”

Sansa leave the Queen, with a sickness in her stomach and a dread for what she must do.

Sansa inhales deeply, trying to keep her breathing steady, before she thinks,  _ my name is Sansa Stark. I’m heir to the North. And I can survive this.  _


	12. A Burning Fire

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Look who's back, ripping out surprise chapters from NO WHERE! 
> 
> Tbh though you guys should be really grateful (I'm grateful) because I wrote 3k of this chapter that I really struggled with, and my computer crashed because word on Mac apparently likes to act as if it can DO that WITHOUT saving shit! So yeah it took me a solid two hours to find where my document had been autosaved because for some reason word was saving it in this weird file - long story short, I cried because I was writing a very heavy chapter and I HATE writing these sorts of chapters and I basically lost it for a solid two hours. 
> 
> Anywho, this chapter has caused serious trauma from the whole disappearing act and just basic content, so I'm heading over to my boyfriends house at 11:21 in the evening because lord knows I deserve it right now. I probs shouldn't, because I'm working in the morning, but, hey, FUCK IT! Life's about being spontaneous and all that crap and I have already had a minor breakdown because of a disappearing chapter so who can blame me for being irresponsible and staying up late when I have a six o'clock wake up tomorrow? Lol I will hate myself in the morning.
> 
> Oh, but I have news! Today was my last day of Uni, got the highest in my class and OFFICIALLY signed for my new job so it was a good day (other than the disappearing word document). 
> 
> Sorry for that ramble. It's late. I'm traumatised. 
> 
> Song Rec for this chapter: From the Dining Table by Mr Harold Styles (although it doesn't really relate it's just the song I was writing the last part of the chapter to). 
> 
> Enjoy! Once again, sorry for the ramble.

Sansa Stark thinks of her mother as she walks.

Catelyn Tully was a girl whose mother perished in the birthing bed before she was a girl of marrying age. Sansa has always thought of her mother, and how little she truly knew of her.  _ I was only ten and three when I was taken from Winterfell to join the court.  _ Of course, her mother had told her small things of her own childhood - of the river that she would swim in, and the siblings she took control of once her mother had perished.

Sansa had never had much interest in listening to her mother’s stories, unless they included tales of tourneys and betrothals. Sansa can recall how interested she was, when it was first revealed to her that her mother was not promised to her father to begin with, but to a different Stark.

_ “But why did you marry Papa if you loved Lord Brandon?”  _ Sansa had asked, her confusion thick.

Her Lady mother had smiled, before she had tightened the furs around Sansa’s body, reading her for bed. “ _ Because Lord Brandon died, and my father still needed me to marry a Stark. There was a war, after all, Sansa, and especially in war we must do our duty to our family and we must honour promises we have made.” _

_ “And so you married Papa?” _

Catelyn Stark had smiled, and nodded. “ _ Yes. I married your Papa, and I soon began to love him more than I ever truly loved your Uncle.” _

_ “But you did not want to marry Papa?” _

Her Lady mother had laughed. “ _ It matters not what I wanted, Sansa. And I didn’t love Brandon, not truly. I think I was blinded by the thought of it.” _

_ “The thought of what?”  _ Sansa has asked, still confused.

Catelyn had smiled, brushing Sansa’s hair from her face. “ _ Blinded by the thought of what it might be, rather than what it was. Lord Brandon was handsome, and sung the most beautiful songs, and his laugh was simply beautiful. I thought, mayhaps, Lord Brandon was the Lord of all the songs and when I was told that I was to marry your father instead, I was sad.” _

_ “Because Papa is not handsome?”  _ Sansa had asked. “ _ Mama, that is so mean!” _

“ _ Papa is very handsome.”  _ Her mother had laughed. “ _ But your father did not speak much when I was first introduced to him, and he was very serious. My sister said he was as icy as the wall itself and she was right, then. But my father was the one who told me that it mattered not if Lord Eddard was as handsome or as worldly as Lord Brandon, for his heart was good and his word was even stronger. ‘Cat’, my father said, ‘Lord Brandon would have made you happy, for a time, but you would soon come to not like the way he smiled at other ladies, or the whispers that others would say. Lord Eddard will be good and loyal’.” _

_ “What did he mean?”  _ Sansa had asked, still confused. “ _ About Uncle Brandon?” _

_ “Many ladies loved Lord Brandon for he was very handsome, and sweet,”  _ Her mother said, “ _ and my father thought I would not like it.”  _ Sansa had been quiet for a moment, before her Lady mother continued, “ _ I did not want to marry your father, truthfully. But my father reminded me that I was a Tully, and our words are Family. Duty. Honor. And so, I married Lord Eddard, and he went to war, and I hated it. I thought I knew more than my father, you see.” _

_ “But you didn’t!” _

_ “No.”  _ Catelyn had laughed. “ _ No, my father had been right, for when the war was done and I was brought to Winterfell, I found the icy husband I had married to be not icy at all. In fact, he was rather nervous.” _

_ “Papa was nervous?”  _ She had asked, riveted.

“ _ Very,”  _ Lady Stark said, pressing a kiss to her forehead. “ _ I thought he didn’t like me, truly, for he seemed to always not know what to say. But then one day, when he noticed that I had been praying in my rooms, he said that he would build me a Sept. That was the day that I truly knew my father had been right.” _

_ “I do not want my marriage to be like that,”  _ Sansa had decided, to her mother’s laughter. “ _ My husband will love me from the moment he meets me and I shall live in the South!” _

_ “We don’t get to choose what is done to us, my sweet,”  _ Her mother had said, standing from her bed. “ _ All we must do is find happiness in what we are given.” _

Sansa truly misses her mother, then.

Sansa wishes she can run to her mother, as she used to do as a child, and ask her to fix everything. Sansa wishes for nothing but the embrace of her mother; the warmth of a kiss, or simply the way her hair once smelt.  _ She smelt of honeysuckles, and lavender.  _ Sansa wishes that she still had the luxury of knowing her mother still walked, that her mother still breathed. It is a tragedy, perverse and excruciating, to know that the one person she needs no longer exists.

It is a funny, precarious thing, to know someone you loved is now a  _ was.  _ Past tense. Gone. They will never be an  _ is _ again – never present, never living, never breathing, just dead. Death is easily forgotten, and each time Sansa wakes with confusion, yearning for the words of her mother, or the embrace of her father, she is forced to remember it all. And remembering is like drowning, again and again.

But for those few moments that she forgets, every death, every disappearance, every scar, she feels like the girl she once was. And so, every night before she falls into the abyss of unconsciousness, Sansa wishes for an abrupt wake and confusion, so that she might forget and have a family once more. 

Until she remembers, of course.

Sansa can hear heavy footsteps behind her, and she knows it is Ser Barristan. Humiliation floods through her, but it is quickly dampened by the feeling of familiarity. Sansa has not known modesty since she was but a girl, for privacy was ripped from her the moment Joffrey had ripped her small clothes from her body on the night of their wedding.

And yet for all that she knows of humiliation and invasion, Sansa wishes she did not have to know it once more.

_ Breathe,  _ Sansa tells herself,  _ your name is Sansa Stark. You are heir to the North. And you can survive this. _

But she does not know if she can, for she feels weak. She is a glass doll; fragile, and breakable. She is the steel of a sword; unbendable, and sharp. She is simply more than what they think she is, and she thinks she is. Sometimes, Sansa is as much of an enigma to herself than to the court.

Sansa glances over her shoulder, and sees Ser Barristan, who does not meet her eye. Sansa inhales deeply, before she pushes open the door to Jon’s chambers and finds him alone. It is dark when she enters, the light of the fire lighting barely half of the room and the little light the moon provides has cast a shadow over the chambers.

Jon looks up, surprise lighting his face as Sansa closes the door behind her. “You’re back.”

Sansa does not respond, but simply looks around the room. “Where is Joanna?”

“I sent her to her rooms with Septa Samor,” Jon says, almost sheepish. He seems unsure of his own actions – as if the Commander of an army cannot know if he is right in his child minding abilities. “The Septa said it was past her bedtime.”

Sansa nods, before she crosses the room to pour herself some wine.  _ If I must do this, then I shall at least be drunk. _

“That is fine.” Sansa takes a gulp of her wine, depleting the cup of it’s contents.

“Sansa?” Jon watches her, his eyebrows furrowing. “What happened? What did she say?”

There is no fear in his voice, as there may have been if it was anybody else speaking of the Queen. Instead there is a burning that exists deep within his grey orbs – a burning that holds so much more than fear.  _ Anger,  _ Sansa thinks, _ betrayal.  _ But Jon Snow does not fear the Queen, that much Sansa knows.

_ He would never listen to her,  _ she thinks,  _ if she threatened him into consummation. She does not have that power over him. _

“Tommen may take the black,” Sansa says, wiping her mouth. “And Tyrion shall be spared.”

Shock consumes his features. “What?”

“I know,” Sansa says, for she too is shocked that the Queen had even allowed her in her chambers. “She … she is being merciful.”

Jon laughs, a wide smile stretching over his face as he begins to walk towards her. “Sansa, that’s good news!”

He takes another step forward, as if he is to hug her, and Sansa steps back, retreating away from his figure. Sansa looks to her feet, realising what she done, before she begins to shake her head, placing her hand on her forehead as she curses beneath her breath.

“Sansa, it is alright,” Jon says, his eyebrows coming in confusion. “Did she- she did harm you?”

Sansa’s breath hitches, and she shakes her head. “No, no, she didn’t hurt me.”

“Then what is it?” Jon asks, his hand coming to stroke his beard as he looks to her. “Tell me.”

“I have made a deal with the Queen,” Sansa whispers, her words so thick they feel like marbles in her throat.

Jon’s face goes cold. “A deal?”

Sansa’s teeth tear into the bottom of her lip, and she tastes the familiar copper of blood flooding her tongue. “For mercy.”

Jon waits for her to finish, and yet Sansa cannot force the words from her lips. Sansa cannot say  _ we must consummate our marriage.  _ The five words are like poison, and she cannot voice them.  _ And yet I must. _

Sansa breathes in, deeply, sharply, as she meets Jon’s eyes. “I am so sorry, Jon.”

“What?” Jon asks, his face flooding in anger. The same anger that Sansa has seen many times prior. “What have you done?”

“We must … we must …”

Jon steps forward, restraint gone from him as his rage burns. “What? Spit it out, Sansa.”

“The Queen needs an heir,” Sansa whispers, her fists clenching as she tries to control herself. Sansa feels like she is spinning – walking a string of anger, and sadness, disgust, and pain, betrayal and horror. Her lungs are heaving with her sins, and her breathing is coming out in rasps – her body rejecting the mere thought of what she must do.

Jon takes a step back, and his face, scarred and mutilated by the years that have passed, transforms into a mask of betrayal.  _ Hurt,  _ she thinks,  _ I have hurt him.  _ There is disgust, too, but the hurt that consumes his features is all she can see.  _ We made a deal on the night of our wedding, and I have betrayed it for the sake of his enemies safety. _

“I’m so sorry,” Sansa repeats, her words coming out raspy and cracked.

Jon narrows his eyes, his nose flaring in anger as he turns away from her and looks to the wall. His shoulders move with his angered breathing, his fists clenching as he tries to control himself. Sansa takes a step forward, to attempt to console him, but as her fingers graze his shoulder, he forces her far from her touch – moving away from her.

“Jon,” Sansa says, pained. “I’m sorry but it was the only way-“

Jon whips around, his anger a storm and she its victim. “ _ She  _ wants an heir.  _ You  _ have made a deal.”

“It was the only way-“

Jon slams his wine skin into the wall, causing scarlet liquid to stain the stone. “The  _ only  _ way? Did you not think to even ask me of what you have promised the Queen? We had agreed weeks ago that we would not touch each other – that we would be husband and wife in  _ name  _ only.”

“It is the only way we can ever leave,” Sansa whispers. “The only way Tommen and Tyrion will survive.”

“Tyrion Lannister should die,” Jon spits, his eyes flaring. “You think him to be a God because he was good to you, but he is responsible for thousands of dead.  _ He  _ was the one behind the Blackwater plot-“

“At Joffrey’s’ order!” Sansa argues. “Tyrion is not a monster.”

“He is a  _ Lannister!”  _ Jon snarls. “Or have you forgotten what that family has done to ours?”

Sansa takes a step back, his words a whip. Squinting, she breathes, “Forgotten? How can I forget? They reminded me every day for years.”

Jon sighs, exasperated, as he places his head in his hands – his hair unravelling from the leather he had tied it with. Pain courses through Sansa’s veins like along with her blood, and she wants to rip her gown from her body and show Jon just what Joffrey Lannister had done to her.

Jon shakes his head in his hands, before he looks up – his face crumpling in guilt. “I’m sorry. I did not mean it. I’m- I’m angry.”

“You were cruel,” Sansa snaps. “Do you think I want to do this? Do you think I have wanted any of this? My hand is being forced!”

“I know!” Jon shouts, stepping forward in anger. He is frightening, then, as he towers over – his figure menacing as he glares at her. “I know, Sansa,  _ fuck,  _ I KNOW! You’re acting as if you are the only one that has been forced into this marriage. I am a bastard, and they have dressed me up to be a Prince! I have a wife that will not ever wish to touch me, and a Kingdom that I do not want.” Jon heaves in his anger, shaking his head as his voice goes tight, “I thought I could trust you.”

Guilt consumes her, but Sansa cannot feel guilty – not now. “I did not do this to hurt you, Jon. I did it to save two men that are innocent of crimes they are accused.” 

 

Jon looks away, going silent as his jaw locks – breathing sharply through his nose. Sansa watches him in trepidation, before she begins to ramble, “She said that if we don’t begin to try for a child, she will have Joanna sent away to the North and that her mercy shall run dry. Jon … we cannot lie to her again.”

Jon squeezes his eyes shut, the room being filled with nothing but the sound of his heavy breathing. His fury radiates from him like a furnace, and Sansa knows then why they call him a dragon.  _ The fire within him is brighter than any fire Daenerys or Aegon could ever claim to know. _

“The Queen has sent Ser Barristan to guard our door,” Sansa whispers. “So that he shall … know.”

“Gods,” Jon sneers, wiping his face with his hand as he turns to walk away. But he stops on his second step, his head looking to the ground before he turns on his heel and meets her eyes.

Sansa waits for him to speak, but he says nothing.

Instead, he begins to walk forward.

Sansa can feel the sickness return – her body paralysed as her husband walks towards her. With a fractured breath, Sansa watches as Jon begins to pull at his jerkin, unlacing it at the sides before he throws it to the floor.

“What are you doing?” Sansa whispers, her eyes wide.

“I am doing as the Queen commands,” Jon says, his voice cold as he yanks off his tunic.

The first thing Sansa notices is that Jon’s chest is covered in the scars from the battles he has survived. A thought strikes her, unfunny and ironic, whispering,  _ you shall have matching scars from your battles fought.  _ He is unlike Joffrey, although Joffrey never fully undressed while he had her in his bed. No, he would always remained clothed while she was as bare as the day she was born.

Jon is not like her last husband, at all. It is almost strange, how different they both are. Joffrey was without hair, or muscle – simply lean. Jon is not lean, not at all. He is pure muscle, and his skin is not so much skin but a barrage of collected scars. His arms are coated, his chest too, and the hair that travels down to his pubic bone.

“I-“ Sansa begins, taking a step back as Jon stands before – his breath warm as it fans over her face.

His grey eyes are cold as he says, “I will not rape you, Sansa.”

“I know,” Sansa whispers.

“Then do not make this harder for me,” Jon grits out, before he begins to unlace his pants.

“No!” Sansa bursts out, causing his head to snap to hers. Sansa’s body heaves with her guilt, with her anger, with her humiliation – a storm of conflicting thoughts and feelings that she cannot make any sense of consuming her. In her hand she still clasps her wine, and so she brings what is left to her lips, and downs it, before she places her cup on the table.

Closing her eyes, Sansa repeats what she knows to be true.   _ My name is Sansa Stark. I’m heir to the North. And I can survive this. My name is Sansa Stark. I’m heir to the North. And I can survive this. My name is Sansa Stark. I’m heir to the North. And I can survive this. _

Sana’s fingers tremble as she begins to unlace her gown. Her ladies had dressed Sansa in a gown with her strings down the front, thankfully. And yet her fingers are shaking so much that untying her laces is near impossible.

“Here,” Jon grunts, reaching out to begin to unlace her gowns. Sansa watches as he pulls at the laces, causing her gown to gape open. Jon pulls it down, leaving Sansa in nothing but her shift. She feels naked, despite the thin material of the shift between them, but it is the way he is looking at her that causes her to feel so bare. His eyes linger on her stomach, but she does not blame him – her skin is a wasteland of torn flesh and regret. What once was beautiful, and pale porcelain is not raised skin, scarred with the malice of her enemy’s hatred.

Jon reaches out, and grazes the largest scar – one on her side. Sansa flinches, but she does not move away from him. Jon looks up to her, his face contorting in sorrow as he whispers, “He did this to you?”

“That,” Sansa whispers, “is before he married me.”

Jon looks away, his face a torment before he closes his eyes, inhaling deeply. When he opens them, something has changed - the anger that had burned has dampened and has been replaced with a melancholia. “You are no soldier, and yet you have more scars then I do.”

Sansa looks to him, wondering if he is joking, before she laughs. She decides then that she cares not if Jon was meant to be funny or not – it is ridiculous, Sansa thinks, that a warrior as famous as the winged wolf has less scars than his wife.

“Who says I am no soldier?” Sansa asks, looking to meet his eyes.

Eyes of stone meet her, and Sansa can feel something burning deep within her chest as Jon moves his hand away from her stomach. “You know I shall never hurt you as he did?”

Sansa bites her lip, before she steps closer to him. She pushes everything that screeches  _ sin  _ to the back of her mind as she stares at her husband’s face, from the large scar above his eye to the way a stray hair curls on his forehead. His skin is marble, and his eyes the same shade of the moon hiding behind a blanket of clouds, but unbearable in their stare for they offer a glimpse into a life she had once known.

_ He is a ghost made from scarred flesh and stolen life,  _ Sansa thinks, looking to the scars of her husband’s face,  _ at least Joffrey kept my face free from his touch.  _

“I know,” Sansa says, before she glances to the bed, and courage catches her. “I … I want to keep my shift on.”

Jon catches her eye, nodding. The anger has completely gone from him now, for he still stares at her scars - something of a torment consuming him. “If you wish.”

“I do,” Sansa says, rushed, as she moves past him, almost tripping over herself as she walks to the bed.  _ Remember what you have survived. Remember what you have seen. This is no battle; this is simply the game. There will be no pain. This is no battle. _

Sansa does not look behind her, but she can hear Jon. Sansa stands at the bed, her eyes taking in the large featherbed, and she can feel the nausea taking hold. Sansa closes her eyes, feeling sweat pool in her palms as she remembers the screams, and how many times she had begged him to stop. Her throat would feel as if it was being ripped apart on those nights, when he would enter her, again and again, paying no heed to the way she would thrash or beg for him to stop.

He had taken pleasure in her pain, and she had been to pained to remain quiet.

Sansa closes her eyes.  _ I am Sansa Stark of Winterfell. I cannot be scared of a featherbed. _

“Sansa?”

Sansa rips her eyes open, and looks to Jon. 

Jon looks tormented, before he says, “We do not have to.”

_ He is lying. _

Sansa can feel the want to agree, the want to give up, pulling her away from the featherbed, but she knows she cannot.  _ Jon is not Joffrey. Jon is not Joffrey. Jon is not Joffrey. _

_ “ _ We do.”

Sansa sits on the bed, cross legged and wary eyed, watching as Jon stands before her in his pants. Running a hand through his hair, Jon looks away as he pulls his pants down. Sansa looks away, her cheeks flushing deeply at the brief sight she had received.  _ Gods. _

The featherbed bends as Jon crawls onto it, and towards her. Sansa spares a glance to him, her head consumed with the vertigo of her existence as he sits, inches away. His hot breath fans over her face, and Sansa’s hands clench the material of her shift.  _ He can see through it,  _ a part of her screams, wishing for something else to cover her, but she cannot listen to that voice.

Not now.

Jon Snow’s face has been in her dreams for weeks, but she has never dreamt of him with moonglow in his hair and worry in his eyes. Sansa is not blind, and in this darkness, as the space between them becomes smaller and smaller, she can feel her heart begin to pound.

But it is not fear that she feels.

Jon looks down, before he meets her eyes again – Stark grey meeting Tully blue – and raises his hand to touch her face. Sansa jumps from the touch, but Jon does not laugh as she had half expected.

“I am just touching you,” Jon whispers, gentle as he traces her cheek. “I will not hurt you.”

Sansa nods. “I know.”

“Then trust me, okay?” Jon whispers, leaning forward. “I’m going to kiss you now, okay?”

“Kiss!?!” Sansa almost screeches, pulling back as her eyes widen.

This time, Jon does smile.

“It will make this easier,” Jon says, a crooked smile crossing his face. “Believe me.”

“I thought the men of the Nights Watch do not know women,” Sansa whispers, his face so close now that she can see the black speckles in his eyes; like stars dancing across the moon.

Jon does not respond; instead, he lays a gentle kiss upon her lips. It is soft, a feather upon a stone, and Sansa does not know what to do. Jon raises a hand to cup her cheek as he leans forward, wrapping his arm around her waist as he pulls her to him. Sansa is still – a marble sculpture at first – until she feels his hand tickling the base of her spine.

Slowly, unsurely, Sansa begins to lean into his kiss – opening her mouth slightly. And yet as soon as the kiss had begun it was gone – his lips far from hers as he comes to stare at her.

“I am no maid,” Jon says with a shrug. “Sorry.”

Sansa has to laugh now. “That should be my apology.”

Jon shakes his head; his grey eyes a storm of unspoken words before he leans in and captures her lips in his. This time it’s not so gentle – it is fast, and Sansa is taken aback by how tightly Jon is holding her. Gasping, Jon tightens his hold, biting into her lip as he pulls her into his lap.

_ This is wrong,  _ she thinks,  _ this is so wrong. _

And yet there is something that is blooming within her, a pooling of fire deep within her gut that is yearning for more. There is a part of her that wants him, more than Sansa should want him, and it confuses her.  _ I do not want him,  _ she thinks, but her body does not care for her thoughts.  _ I do not want him. This is wrong. I do not want him. _

Sansa pulls back, her mind an abyss of warring thoughts. Her mind is a battlefield, warring between guilt and desire, and yet her body is fueling whatever burns her. Jon is panting, but there is hesitance in his face – an uncertainty that they share. Sansa wonders if Jon is thinking of someone else, imagining her to be another, for she does not know how he can be doing this.

“Jon,” Sansa breathes, before his name is cut off by his lips and she is pushed back. The fire that has grown within her is now a blaze she cannot extinguish – no thought of sin, or feeling of guilt being able to quench it from its thirst.

Her hands go to his hair first, gripping onto something to hold her to Earth. Jon spreads her legs, and places himself between them, before he breaks the kiss and presses another to her neck.

“Jon,” She whispers, the words thick on her tongue. She wants to tell him to just get it over with, and yet she cannot. She wants to tell him that they cannot be doing as they are – that is wrong, and yet she cannot. For her body is aflame with his touch, and she has never felt anything like this.

Jon presses a kiss to her pelvic bone, before he pushes her shift up. 

 

Sansa sits up, in shock, “Jon, we should just get this over with!”

Jon looks up from between her legs. “I cannot just fuck you, Sansa,” He says, his moonlit eyes almost glaring at her. “I am not  _ him _ .”

“I don’t … I don’t understand,” Sansa says, her words coming out like bile, “This is  _ wrong _ .”

Jon flinches, pain rippling over his features before he places his hand on her inner thigh. “I won’t hurt you, Sansa. I can’t hurt you. I am not him.”

“I know  _ that _ ,” Sansa hisses, exasperated. “I know you’re not him.”

“Than let me touch you,” Jon hisses back. “You have forced me to do this – let me make this less horrible.”

_ Horrible. _

Sansa looks down, biting her lip. Jon is staring at her with hunger burning in his eyes, and she does not know how to react. _Just tell him to finish. This is wrong._ But the burning from before has not been quenched – seemingly it has begun to spread through every limb, and thought.

It is then the truly horrible notion strikes her.  _ I want him to touch me. _

“I-“ Sansa stumbles, her hands clenching the furs on the bed as Jon presses a kiss to the mound between her legs. “Oh!”

Sansa has never felt anything like this; has never thought she could feel anything like this.  _ Is this what men feel, when they climax? Is this why he took such pleasure from me?  _ Sansa can hear herself mewling with pleasure as Jon’s tongue parts her folds, his beard tickling her skin as his fingers stroke the part of her she has never so much even touched.

The fire from before feels as if it is growing with every moment – a wildfire that burns every cell within her. She is burning, and yet she asks for no water; this burn is bright, and Sansa wishes to become its ashes.

Sansa bites into her lip when he enters her with his fingers, drawing small circles around her entrance while his tongue continued.  _ What is he doing?  _ She thinks, shifting as the burning becomes unbearable. It feels as if she is about to explode – her body shattering into pieces to float amongst the stars and she left to become a euphoric torch in the sky, to rival the sun or moon.

“I-  _ stop _ ,” Sansa pants, unable to take any more of it. It is as if there is a mist that blinds her, clouding her judgement and throwing her into an abyss of wanton instability. Jon looks up, his eyes hooded by the shadows of his desire. “We should- you should-  _ now _ .”

When he enters her, it is slow.

Sansa has never experienced such gentleness – such patience. Her eyes squeeze shut, and yet she does not want to scream as she has so many times prior. Her fingers clench at the furs beneath her, but she does not cry with pain.  _ This is so different,  _ she thinks, the fire within her obliterating every sane thought she once had as she becomes ravenous for his touch.

“Ah,” Jon groans, his arms coming to either side of her head as he begins to pull out again. “ _ Fuck.” _

Sansa does not care for his curses, not when he is looking at her as he does. Sansa watches him as he squeezes his eyes shut, simply savouring the feeling of  _ them,  _ before he leans down and gazes at her, kissing her.

She moans against his lips as her hips begin to move, hesitantly, before she realises she  _ needs  _ to move. Her hands come to his back as her nails dig into his back, before one goes to his bare ass – pushing him further into her. Her legs wrap themselves around his hips as she can feel the fire within her spreading like none before.

His lips break from hers, before they attach themselves to her collarbone – his hands coming to touch her breasts through the thin cotton of her shift. Every moment she can feel another part of him, from the throbbing  _ within  _ her to the way his lips suckle at her collarbone, to the way he massages her nipple between his fingers.  

It is more pleasure than she has ever known, and suddenly … Sansa can see the stars.

She sees the moon, and the sun too, and oh how she can hear the bells ringing her ears as she cries for the fire that has now erupted from her belly. She can hear Jon shouting something, but she cannot notice him – not when her toes are curling and she is being flooding by a water that quells the blaze that Jon had set alight within her.

Jon trembles above her, before he breathes into her neck. “Seven  _ hells. _ ”

But Sansa cannot say anything, for the mist is lifting and the fire has been doused, and suddenly every ounce of pleasure she had felt is gone, leaving Sansa Stark with nothing but an aching core and a river of guilt to drown in. 


	13. Hear Them Roar

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, I gave myself a break! I hope it wasn't too bad that I was gone - I know some of you probably missed the regularity of the updates, but this chapter in particular was really hard to write and I wasn't going to force it out of me. 
> 
> I also want to apologise in advance - because this chapter was written over several days, I think it might be a bit incoherent so if it's not up to standard, apologies! 
> 
> Also just thought I'd mention that my name is Emily. Some of you keep referring to me as my username so I just thought I'd tell you my name :)

Sansa dreams of wolves, and bloodied snow.

Sansa dreams of headless bodies, and nails tearing at flesh.

Sansa dreams of a girl with no face, and a girl with too many names.

But mostly Sansa sees blood, when her eyes close. Blood, just blood. Thick rivers of pain that flow with the screams of her past, drowning her, killing her.

The faces of those she has lost painted red, their bodies floating down the river that she too drowns in.  _ Father. Mother. Robb. Arya. Bran. Rickon.  _ Septa Mordane sometimes joins them, her headless body wrapped in her robes. Other nights Sansa shall see Jeyne Pool, a smile stretching over her lips as she sinks into the red abyss.

And then other nights, particular cruel nights, Sansa shall see Joanna join them.

“ _ Mama _ ,” She calls, panicked as she sinks into the river.

And every time Sansa reaches for her babe to pluck her from the waters, she sinks lower into the red river herself.

“ _ Mama!”  _ Joanna calls once more.

Something pulls her back from reaching her, and Sansa looks behind her, her family of ghosts calling to her. But it is Arya who speaks, a whisper as she says, “ _ Sansa, Sansa, Sansa.” _

Sansa jolts awake, and realises the river of blood is not truly a dream.

Confusion comes first, before the mist of her mind clears and she realises that it is her moonblood. Shoving her sheets from her, and lifting her sheet, Sansa looks to her bloodied thighs – her ears ringing with the sound of Arya’s voice in her ear.   _ Sansa, Sansa, Sansa,  _ she had called, her voice so familiar that Sansa could not force it from her mind.

Sansa wipes away at her thigh, feeling the stickiness of her blood on her fingers before she curses beneath her breath.

The skies are still dark, and so Sansa does not call for one of her ladies maids who sleep on pallets in the chamber beside. Instead, she cleans herself up under the light of the moon, wiping red blood from white skin.

“It takes time, Sansa.”

Sansa closes her eyes, rage pooling through her at the sound of her father's voice.

“Leave.”

“I’m sorry, Sansa,” Her father murmurs, but she does not turn.

“Sorry,” Sansa whispers, her hand clenching on the wet cloth as she looks to the bloodied water. “You should not be here – you should not see this.”

He is silent.

Sansa turns, catching a glimpse of her father’s face. She has been dreading the sight of him – the sight of his anguish, and disappointment. But he wears a mask of nothing but melancholy, and she does not know what to think of such a sight.

“Are you not going to say anything?” Sansa asks. “Are you not going to speak of it?”

Eddard Stark is still silent.

Sansa turns from him, and continues to wipe at her thighs. “I wouldn’t feel guilty if you did not lie and call him my brother.”

“I am not here for your guilt.”

Sansa looks up, her eyes narrowing. “Then what are you for, Father? What are you here for?”

Ned smiles. “I am only here for you, Sansa.”

_ I am seeing ghosts that don’t even haunt me. _

Sansa looks down at her thighs, her voice pained as she whispers, “We’ll have to try again.”

“Yes.”

“I didn’t want to,” Sansa curses. “I didn’t want this.”

“We are all the result of our tragedies, Sansa,” Her father says, a drifting voice. “We must adapt.”  

_ Adaption is not acceptance,  _ Sansa thinks, scrubbing at her thighs harder.  _ I do not want to accept what they have made me do. _

“Death would have been easier to accept,” Sansa snaps.

“Death is so final,” Her father muses. “In death, there is nothing but silence.”

Sansa glances to look at him, her eyes narrowing. “Are you truly a ghost, or are you some imaginings of my mind?”

Her father remains silent.

Sansa looks down to her thighs again, trying to rid herself of Arya’s voice that rings through her head.  _ Sansa, Sansa, Sansa. _

“Are they all with you?” Sansa whispers, not sure she truly wants the answer.

Her father remains silent.

“Arya?” Sansa asks, turning to look at her father. “What of Arya?”

A ghost of a smile rests on his face, and Sansa stands, ignoring the blood that she can feel collecting at the base of her legs, before she begins to walk towards him.

“I dreamt of her,” Sansa admits. “Tonight, I dreamt of her. At first I didn’t recognise her, because she is so much older but ... but it is her, isn’t it?”

Her father remains silent.

“Is she North?” Sansa asks, anxious in her questions. “There was whispers, months ago, that she was married to the Bolton bastard. But I know Arya and I know that not even the Gods could force her to marry.”

Her father remains silent.

Sansa sighs, in exasperation, before she glared at her father. “If you cannot tell me anything, why bother haunting me? Why do you even come here?”

Her father is pensive, his brows pulling together as he looks from her. Eddard Stark is as she remembers, reserved and reticent, and yet this apparition that stands before her is not her father. This imagining, if that is what it truly is, is nothing more than an echo of a man whose bones are missing and whose sword she still has not been given.

She knows he shall not tell her anything, and so she turns, and wishes away the madness within her, before she continues to scrub at the blood that stains her skin.

 

* * *

 

When she falls asleep once more, she dreams nothing of a red river or ghosts that call her name.

She dreams of bare skin, and a burning fire.

She dreams of a man that devours her, and whose fingers pierce the skin of her thighs as he consumes her.

She dreams of a man with grey eyes, and a black beard that drips with the fruit of his meal.

She hears her screams, but they are foreign to her ears. 

Moments before she wakes, it changes; a chameleon of her mind that takes hold in the cries of a babe at her breast. For a moment, Sansa thinks it is Joanna, but as she looks through the mirage of her dream, she finds herself stroking a fine cap of auburn hair and Stark eyes of grey that stare at her.

And she finds that she doesn’t mind the sight of a babe with Tully hair and Stark eyes.

 

* * *

 

“The Prince is here for you, my lady.”

Sansa looks up from the book she is reading, standing at the sight of the man that stands behind Lady Tarly. He is panting, and his skin coated in a sheen of sweat.  _ Something is wrong. _

Sansa closes her book clumsily, placing it on the table as she stands and dips into a small curtsy. “My Lord Husband.”

“Wife.” Jon nods, glancing to Lady Tarly before he steps forward hesitantly. “May you leave us, Lady …?”

“Tarly, my Prince” She says, smiling.

“Tarly,” Jon repeats, surprised.

Lady Tarly curtsies, before she hurries from Sansa’s solar.

Sansa rubs her hands together, and looks to Jon, feeling, for the first time in a long time, rather awkward. “Have you-“

“Are you-“

They both halt at their ramblings, and Sansa cannot help but laugh slightly. “Wine? Have you come from the training yard?”

Jon stares at her, before he nods quickly. “Yes, Sansa.”

Sansa pauses at the sound of her name on his lips, a shiver crawling up her spine before she offers him the cup. Everything seems so strange between them now – a wall of crackling fire that hadn’t existed before. He is a man who wears the skin of a stranger and yet his eyes are no stranger than winter is to a Stark.

Jon looks to the cup in his hand, before he sighs and places it on the table, not even drinking from it. Sansa watches him with mild confusion, before she sits.

“I- I’ve come to see you,” Jon says, wiping the sweat from his forehead.

“Yes.” Sansa nods at the obvious. “It must be urgent, to disrupt from your training.”

Jon looks down at his sweat covered hands, before he realises just how truly odd it seems. “Sorry … I did not think.”

Sansa looks to longclaw, the sword that Jon grasps tightly in his hand, before she steps forward and gently takes it from him. Jon watches as she handles the blade, looking to the bear head.

“It is a shame,” Sansa says as she places the sword on the table, “that the women of Bear Island are deprived of their sword.”

Jon looks to the sword. “It is … it was a gift.”

“I wasn’t doubting your honour, Jon,” Sansa says with a small smile. “He must have thought so much of you, to give you something like that.”  

Jon sighs, pushing his hair from his face before he picks up the wine and takes a gulp of the thick Dornish liquid.  _ We do not know how to talk to each other,  _ Sansa thinks,  _ we act as if the other is made of glass and we hold a hammer. _

“You have- we have not seen each other since that night,” Jon says, his words coming out fast.

Sansa nods. “Yes.”

“You left,” Jon says simply, grey eyes narrowing. “Why?”

Sansa shifts in her seat. “I wished for my own bed.”

Jon stares at Sansa, her words heavy in the air as he digests her lie. Jon drags his hand over his face, as if the lie is so potent that he cannot even bear to pretend to believe it.

“You-“ Jon breaks off, shaking his head before a harsh chuckle escape his throat. “You begged me, and then you left.”

Sansa feels the guilt then – the roaring bull that wishes to destroy her dancing through her limbs without a care. She feels as if she is drowning, being pulled down by a current of conflicting emotions that she doesn’t wish to acknowledge let alone accept.

“The Queen wishes for us to have a child.” Sansa forces from her lips. “I needn’t stay for any longer than-“

“Sansa!” He snaps, glaring at her. “Can you just talk to me? I’m not  _ them.  _ I’m not the Queen. I’m not the court. I’m your husband.”

“I know who you are,” Sansa hisses. “I’m well aware, Jon, of who you are.”

Jon laughs, breathless. “Aye? Do you? I didn’t realise.”

Sansa sighs, her hands clenching her skirts as she stands and faces him. Grey eyes meet blue, Stark meets Targaryen, husband meets wife. For a moment, Sansa wonders what it would be to meet as strangers. What would life be, if she was a common girl and he a common boy?

But the past does not vacate the present, no matter how much has changed. Her past is in every thought, in every breath, in every word. The ghosts of her past hang over her, pulling strings she did not know were sewn into her skin.  _ I am a puppet, pulled by the pain I have felt, standing in the ashes of the girl I once was. _

“I know you’re my husband,” Sansa says with a nod. “I cannot escape it, actually.”   

Jon sighs, dragging his hand down his face before he meets her eyes. A ghost of a smile spreads over his face, before his breath fractures and he looks to her in frustration. “You make our marriage sound like a prison.”

“It is.” Sansa says, cocking her head to the side. Jon’s face hardens, and she sighs, realising she shouldn’t have said that. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said that.”

“But you mean it!” Jon snaps. “I know what you think – I know how much you hate this, me and you. I can only imagine what it must be to suffer a marriage to a bastard.”

“No!” Sansa says, shaking her head as she steps forward. “I didn’t mean it like that, Jon – I do not care that I once thought you were a bast-“

“You still think it of me!” Jon snarls. “I can see it, every time I think to touch you. It’s the same look your mother would give me whenever I thought to eat with you – like she was just waiting for me to disappear.”

Sansa steps back, shock consuming her at his words. “Jon …”

“You sneer at my touch,” Jon hisses, his fist clenching. “You always have, Sansa – nothing has changed.”

“ _ Everything  _ has changed,” Sansa says. “Everything, Jon. I am  _ nothing  _ like the girl I once was. How can I be? They beat her out of me.”

“I saw how you looked at me,” Jon steps forward, his anger so potent she can feel it crawling over her skin. “Like you hated me.” 

“I don’t hate you,” Sansa rushes out. “I could never hate you, Jon.”

“But you hate who I am,” Jon says simply. “You hate that I am the one you must marry, that you must have children with. I hate it too, Sansa – I hate that my  _ wife  _ would rather know chains than my touch, and cannot understand why I am angry.”

“I can’t,” Sansa says, exasperated. “How do you want me to feel, Jon? You were my brother, and then my cousin, and now my husband. I was forced into a marriage while they were still cleaning my husbands blood from the floor of the Queen's rooms, and I couldn’t even refuse.  _ You  _ couldn’t refuse. And now I must lay with a man who I once thought was my bro-“

“You never thought of me as a brother,” Jon snaps, stepping forward. She can feel the warmth from his body radiating forwards, and setting her skin alight. “You thought of me as a bastard, and disguised your disgust of that as disgust for our relation.”

“You have no  _ idea  _ what I think,” Sansa snarls. “You have no idea, Jon – you are a stranger with my father’s eyes, and you still view me as the girl you once knew. The father of my child was a bastard, Jon.”

“He was a  _ King.” _

“And you are a Prince.” Sansa laughs, moving past him to get away. “It makes no difference to me. Do you truly still see me that way – as that girl?”

Jon heaves his breath, his cheeks reddening as he shook his head. “I see what you are now, Sansa – I see a woman who flinches whenever I touch her, who asks me to give her a child and yet will not even look at me when I-“

“Stop,” Sansa says, shaking her head. “Stop, you don’t know what you are saying.”

“I don’t know what I’m saying?” Jon laughs. “I can  _ see  _ it!”

“You can’t see anything, Jon,” Sansa bites out. “You are blinded by your own doubts, and then think that I share them, when in truth, I could care less about your parentage. Once, I did – I was a child wishing for her mother's favour, and so I mirrored her, for I so wanted to be liked her. But I was a child, Jon, and then I was taken away to this place of death and horror and forced to be the wife of a different type of bastard.”

“It’s funny, no? We teach boys to become soldiers, and send them to war while we teach our girls to open their legs, but only to the man we have sold them to first,” Sansa says, meeting her husband’s eyes. “My marriage bed was built on the graves of my family, and while my husband wore armour and played pretend at war, I survived. The moment I saw my father lose his head destroyed who I once was, and you of all people should know that.”

“You made a deal with my heart as your barter, and expected me to comply,” Jon says simply, his eyes narrowing as he shakes his head. “You will never do that again.”

“I-“

“Sansa,” Jon declared, his voice cold as he stares at her. “You will never do that again, not in this marriage. You shall not make agreements or deals without speaking to me first.”

Sansa’s rage flares. “You are not my keeper, my Lord.”

“No, I am your  _ husband. _ ” Jon steps forward, and grabs her arm as she tries to walk from him. “And you are my wife.”

“I am Sansa Stark of Winterfell,” Sansa says, snatching her arm out of his grip. “You do not control me.”

“Obviously,” Jon responds, laughing, “and I wouldn’t wish to, Sansa – I’m asking you talk to me. You to ask me. I am not as Joffrey was, nor am I like other Lords – I do not wish for power.”

“All men wish for power.”

Jon stares at her, shaking his head. “Father didn’t.”

Sansa looks away, her chest heaving. “Father died. He was not a very good player.”

“Gods, Sansa,” Jon says, running his hands through his hair as he walks towards her. “Life is not this game we play at this court. You have become poisoned by these walls-“

“-and I  _ survived,”  _ Sansa seethes. “I had to play this game to survive, Jon. I did not choose to become this person that they made me into.”

Jon does not respond, remaining quiet for a moment as he looks to where Sansa had placed his sword.

“I am not your enemy, Sansa,” Jon says simply, glancing up to catch her eye. “I never will be.”

Jon goes to the table, where the sword rests, and takes it, placing it in it’s sheath before he heads for the door. Rage still burns within her, but there is something else – an overwhelming feeling to tell him what plagues her. Her words are a dam bursting, and they roll from her mouth quickly.

“I bled,” Sansa admits, watching as Jon halts. “I’m not with child, Jon.”

Jon turns to look at her, his grey eyes meeting hers.

“We will have to try again,” Sansa says, fiddling with the hem of her sleeves.

Jon nods, digesting her words slowly, before his face goes slack with the coldness of his disposition. “I’m sorry then.”

“Sorry?” Sansa asks, confused.

Jon nods, his jaw locked and his eyes icy as they meet hers. “I thought you had enjoyed it. I thought we would change. Obviously, I was wrong.”

“I-“

Sansa stops herself, biting her tongue so hard her mouth fills with the taste of copper. She wants to tell him things she cannot even tell herself. She wants to tell him that she did enjoy it – every minute of it. She wants to tell him that since they had lain together, weeks before, she had dreamt of it; of his tongue, and of his fingers, and of his lips. She wants to tell him that she yearns for his touch, and does not know why. She wants to tell him that he should not apologise for pleasuring her, and yet she knows she cannot do so, for the hypocrisy of her indecisive mind is something she does not wish to front.

Her thoughts are sand that slips through her fingers, hauntingly vacant.

“The Queen has declared a date for the executions,” Jon continues. “She wishes for you to be there.”

“Of course,” Sansa says with a nod, feeling awkward to talk of such things. “When will-“

“On the sennight,” Jon says. “Lord Tyrion shall be released on the same day his family are executed.”

“Gods,” Sansa whispers. “And what of Lord Jaime?”

Jon shrugs, before he spits, “I don’t know, Sansa – mayhaps you should ask the Queen, for you seem to have a better relationship with her than I do.”

“Jon,” Sansa admonishes, exasperated as she steps forward. “You are being unre-“

“You need only send me a note,” Jon begins, “to tell me when you’re bleeding has stopped. Then we can try again, at your wish.”

“Jon-“

“I am going riding,” He says. “Do not expect me for dinner.”

And with that, Jon leaves Sansa to her thoughts.

 

* * *

 

 

“Mama, look!”

“I see them, my darling, I see!”

Joanna laughs, gathering more snow in her small gloved hand as she skips to where Sansa stands in the courtyard. “It's cold, Mama!”

Sansa kneels before Joanna, and grins as she takes the snow from Joanna’s hands and presses it together in her own – creating a ball. “When I was little, sweetheart, Mama used to roll the snow into balls and throw them at people.”

“How?” Joanna asks, and Sansa grins, grabbing a handful herself and replicating the ball in Joanna’s hand.

“There,” Sansa says sweetly, before she throws it at a pillar – breaking the snow into a thousand small pieces. Joanna dissolves into a fit of giggles, before she begins to replicate her mothers actions – making ball after ball and throwing it at the pillar.

“My Lady?”

Sansa turns at the sound of Lady Tarly’s voice, smiling at her lady before she sees Ser Jon Highsley. “Ser Jon!”

She has not seen the guard that had guarded her door in many moons – not since the invasion. He had once aided in her in lapsing in his constant watch over her, and in return she would reward him with a small purse of coins.

“My Lady,” He says, his dark grey beard brushing against her hand as he kisses it.

“You may go, Lady Tarly,” Sansa says, glancing at her ladies’ maid, before she grins. “Where have you been? I thought you lost.”

“I have been imprisoned, my lady,” Ser Jon admits. “But I have been assigned again.”

“To who?” Sansa asks, hearing Joanna giggle in the background.

“Your Lord Husband, my lady,” Ser Jon says.

Sansa’s smile slips from her face, and she shifts on her feet. “How wonderful.”

Ser Jon chuckles. “Your Lord Husband is quite elusive, my lady. I will admit that in the moon I have been released, I have only seen him at nights.”

“He goes riding,” Sansa says simply. “Or hunting. Or he sulks.” Ser Jon chuckles, and Sansa threads her arm through his as she says, “Let's walk.”

“I have news, from your lady's maid,” He whispers when they are far enough from where her ladies sit and embroider beneath the warmth of the inside hall. Ser Jon pulls from his sleeve a folded piece of parchment, and Sansa smiles as she tucks the letter into her bodice. “I also have been given access to the prisoners.”

“To Ser Jaime and Lord Tyrion?” Sansa asks. “How are they?”

“Lord Tyrion is as he always is, my lady,” Ser Jon says, before he sighs. “And Ser Jaime is … quiet.”

“Quiet?” Sansa asks. “What do you mean?”

“Mama! My gloves are wet!” Joanna cries, wiping her cold hands on her skirts. Sansa kneels, before she lifts Joanna to her hip and brings her hands to her lips, blowing warm air onto them.

“Better?” Sansa asks.

Joanna nods, but Sansa keeps her at her hip. It is cold, and she does not want her to catch a chill.

“Ser Jaime is quiet, my lady,” Ser Jon says. “Contemplative.”

Sansa nods, before she presses a kiss to Joanna’s head and whispers, “Go to Lady Tarly please.”

“But Mama-“

“Now,” Sansa says as she places her on the ground, watching as her daughter runs back inside and leaves her to the snow filled courtyard. Sansa turns to Ser Jon, and brushes her hands on her skirt before she says, “Ser Jon, how much access have you been given to Ser Jaime?”

 

* * *

 

 

“Jaime.”

He looks up as she enters, pulling the hood of her cloak down before she steps forward.

“Sansa,” Jaime breathes, and Sansa pulls the food out of her sleeve as she did with Tyrion.

“I do not have long,” Sansa admits. “I am not supposed to see you.”

“Breaking the rules,” Jaime says, accepting the food reluctantly. He has wallowed away to half of himself, his face gaunt with the misfortune of his nutrition. His golden hair, the same golden hair his son had shared, has been scalped, leaving clotted scabs on his head. “It is no surprise from you, my Queen.”

“I am Queen no longer,” Sansa says as she sits beside him, leaning against the dirty wall. “Haven’t you heard? My husband is dead.”

“Oh, right,” Jaime says. “The King killed by his Queen. Yes, I remember hearing that.”

Sansa grimaces, before she motions to the bread. “Come, eat. You must be starving.”

Jaime does not do as she asks – instead he simply places the bread on his thigh, and begins to chuckle. “We are both Kingslayers now, my Queen.”

Sansa sobers, her fingers coming to fidget with his locket. “I do not know what to say, truly.”

Jaime looks to her then, his green eyes gazing into hers. “I would have thought you knew enough of death to see a man dying.”

“I have never seen death before it happens,” Sansa admits. “I have never seen someone destined to die.”

“That’s untrue,” Jaime says simply. “You knew your husband, and you knew he was to die.”

“I knew I wanted to  _ kill  _ him,” Sansa says. “Not that I would succeed.”

Jaime snorts, shaking his head. “I would have killed the snot myself if you hadn’t succeeded.”

“You were captured,” Sansa reminds him. “It is very hard, to kill a King when you’re in chains.”

Jaime nods, before silence stretches between them. Sansa debates asking him if he is scared, for she wonders if that hurt him.  _ He knows he will face the sword,  _ Sansa thinks,  _ death is no stranger to Jaime Lannister. _

“How is Joanna?” bursts from his lips, his eyes slightly crazed as he looks to her. “How is Tommen? How is Myrcella?”

“They are all fine,” Sansa says. “Joanna is safe – she has been given the name Stark. Tommen will be released to the Night's Watch after you are …” Sansa breaks, feeling a terrible suffocation. “And Myrcella is still in Dorne. Once Tyrion is released, he will work on getting her to Casterly Rock, I am sure.”

“You will make sure she is kept safe, though?” Jaime asks, and Sansa nods.

“Of course,” Sansa says. “She is innocent.”

“We all were,” Jaime laughs, almost hysterical. “Do you think the Gods laugh at us, Sansa? Do you think they see us fighting over a crown, and laugh?”

“I think the Gods are cruel to laugh at their creation,” Sansa says simply. “The stars do not know our destiny, and yet people pray to them for guidance. People like the sound of their own voice, and then think their misfortune is the work of God's.”

“Sansa Stark,” Jaime muses, “the Heretic.”

Sansa cannot help but laugh – shaking her head. “Is that my next title? Kingslayer, heretic?”

“The mighty fear their women,” Jaime says with a laugh. “If they could, they would call every woman a witch just to watch them burn.”

Sansa’s smile dampens, and she sighs. “Are you scared?”

Jaime is silent for a long while, his grey eyes staring at the corroded stone before he shrugs. “No point in being scared, I suppose.”

“Fear does not care for practicality,” Sansa remarks, before she pulls Jaime’s hand to his and squeezes it. “I wish I could promise you a quick death, Jaime.”

“Why?” Jaime asks, meeting her eyes. “I have sinned against your family, Sansa. I have … I have done awful things-“

“For love?” Sansa asks, nodding. “Yes, I know. You’ve told me.”

Jaime relapses into the silence he has grown accustomed, but Sansa cannot allow silence to fill the air anymore.

“I know I should hate you,” Sansa admits, clarity filling her thoughts. Jaime looks to her, truly looks to her, and Sansa wonders if he has been waiting for this all along. “I think I do, actually. I hate everyone in your family, save for Tyrion and the children.”

“As you should.”

Sansa nods. “Yes, I suppose. But while Tywin, and Joffrey, and Cersei treated me cruelly, you were never interested in that. I don’t think you are a good person, Jaime, but I do not think I am either. We all sin-“

“I have  _ killed  _ hundreds of people,” Jaime rasps, “I have led thousands to their deaths.”

Sansa flinches, closing her eyes before she asks the question that she knows she must. “Did you push my brother from the tower?”

Jaime looks up, meeting her eyes as his breathing shallows. Slowly, very slowly, he nods, and Sansa releases his hand, and moves from him. She had known the truth for a long time, but to hear it – to see it before her – was toxic in itself.

“See,” Jaime says. “I have robbed you of so much, Sansa.”

Sansa can taste salt on her lips as she wipes away her fallen tears. She does not grieve, or rage as she should – she knows she should be consumed by it, but her body does not wish to act as it should. There is no anger within her; only sorrow, for all that has happened, and all that will. “You pushed Bran.”

“Yes.”

“My mother took your brother because of it,” Sansa breathes. “My mother … this all started because you pushed Bran.”

He does not defend himself.

“It is an unfortunate trait of mine,” Jaime begins, “that people think I am a better man than what I truly am.”

“Mayhaps that is your misfortune, Jaime,” Sansa says simply. “That you call yourself a monster before anyone else does.”

Jaime chuckles, shaking his head. “When I am gone, and there is no one but Tyrion, you must make sure that Myrcella returns to court. That she does as she likes.”

Sansa nods. “She shall be safe.”

“And Joanna,” Jaime says, looking to her with wide, crazed eyes. “You must not let them harm her.”

Sansa laughs. “I would rather die than let them harm my daughter.”

“I know,” Jaime says with a rattled breath. “So you … you will be there, when I die?”

“I have no choice,” Sansa murmurs. “So I shall.”

Jaime nods again, his hand clenching at his pants as he begins to shake his head. Sansa has never seen him like this – mad with grief, or mad with fear, she does not know what madness consumes him. He is not Jaime Lannister – he is the echo of a great man, destroyed by the pain of his sins and by the consequences of the orders he fulfilled.

“Sansa …” Jaime begins, before the door is opened and Ser Jon enters.

“My Princess,” He bows his head. “We must go.”

“Right,” Sansa says, before she turns to Jaime, who seems resigned to wallow in the panic that consumes him. “Do not … do not think of it, Jaime. Not the act itself. Whenever I would think of what Joffrey would do to me, it would make me sick with fear. To anticipate pain is worse than the pain itself, and I do not want you to be in pain.”

“Truly?” Jaime asks, a laugh on his lips for a Lannister without laughter on their lips is no Lannister at all.

_ How can I hate someone, and yet care for them at the same time? How can I hold two warring thoughts in my head? _

“For all that I may hate you,” Sansa says, for she knows there is a large part of her that truly hates Jaime Lannister, “I am tired of suffering.”

“Boring, is it?” Jaime jokes, almost breathless as she stands.

“Terribly,” Sansa whispers. “Do you wish me to carry a message to Tyrion? To Tommen and Myrcella?”

“My Lady,” Ser Jon warns, but she holds her hand up, asking for just a moment longer. Sansa will never see Jaime like this again – will never speak to him again. It is odd, to know that this is it – the man she speaks to know will be a man no longer in but days’ time.  

“Jaime?” Sansa asks.

Jaime smiles, a ghost not yet dead, before he whispers, “Tell them that I love them. Tell Tyrion that he must fight their battles, as I have done for him.”

“Of course.”

“And Sansa?”

“Yes?”

“Tell them the truth,” Jaime says. “Tell them all the truth. Tell them, Sansa.”

 

* * *

 

 

The Lannister’s do not face the sword.

Sansa petitioned for it, for she is not cruel, and for she knows that Tommen will weep at the news,  but the Queen did not heed her opinion.

_ “The Lannister’s shall face the fire,”  _ The Queen had said, simple and short, before she had begun to talk of her coronation.

Sansa did not argue, but the wrongness of it all sits heavy in her chest as she is led to her seat to the pits.

She is led by her white cloak, but she halts in her step as she sees Tyrion standing at her arrival.

“Tyrion?” Sansa asks, her eyes widening in shock. She has not been permitted to visit with him since his release had been announced to the court. But he stands before her, in red and gold, and with a face so thin she wonders if he is but another ghost come to haunt her.

“My Princess,” Tyrion says, his bow on unsteady legs causing his entire frame to shake.

Sansa looks to his legs, hidden in ill fitted pants, before she sees the blood. “You’re bleeding!”

Tyrion flinches. “No, my lady.”

Sansa narrows her eyes, before she looks to the guard that stands beside him. “You, what is your name?”

“My Princess,” The guard says, sweeping into a low bow. “I am Ser Griffin Stane, my lady.”

“And is he your charge?” Sansa asks, ignoring the wide eyed looks her ladies were giving her.

“Yes, your grace.”

“Then why is he bleeding?” Sansa snaps, anger a song she sings.

Ser Griff shifts from foot to foot, his cheeks reddening. “I-“

“Who injured him?” Sansa demands, looking from Ser Griff to Tyrion. “Was it you or was it someone else?”

“My Lady,” Lady Tarly begins, before Sansa turns.

“Was I speaking to you, Lady Tarly?” Sansa asks, to which Lady Tarly shakes her head. Sansa turns her head back to look at Ser Griff, cocking a brow. “Well?”

“He was resisting, my lady,” Ser Griff says, after looking to the guards that stand beside him. It seems their presence has instilled something of a confidence in his actions, for he puffs out is chest and meets her eye, as if he expects praise for his ways.

“Resisting?” Sansa parrots, stepping forward to become closer to the man who holds Tyrion’s invisible chain. “I know men like you, Ser. Men who think themselves mighty for their masters have smiled upon them. But you forget, for all your white cloak and gold armour, that just as quickly as you have risen, you may fall and believe me, Ser Stane, I shall make that fall hard if you so much as touch  _ Lord  _ Tyrion again. You have forgotten yourself.”

“My Lady-“ Ser Griff begins, but Sansa does not care for his words any longer. For as long as she stares at Ser Griff, Sansa can recall every beating that she would receive for being ‘resistant’.  _ They would scream resistance at my compliance so they could see me bleed.  _

“And you are too close, Ser,” Sansa spits, stepping forward once more so they are mere inches apart. “Step  **back.** ”

Ser Griff’s eyes light up in outrage, but he bites his tongue and steps back as Sansa knew he would.  __

“If anyone hurts you, my Lord,” Sansa announces, stretching her voice as loudly as she can so that the court shall hear that Tyrion Lannister still retains favour, “you need only say their name, and I shall take it to the Queen personally.”

Tyrion meets her eyes, and Sansa hopes she does not seem too foreign to him – too unlike herself. She can see within him, in those mismatched eyes she knows so well, that there is a dread. Dread for what he was to see, she was sure – dread for Jaime. Something twists within her stomach, deep in the depths of her gut, and Sansa knows then that she wishes for nothing but the choice to pull Tyrion far from this graveyard.  _ To see the death of those you have loved is to see your own heart taken from your chest.  _  “Yes, my Princess.”

Sansa nods, before she continues the long walk to her seat.

“My Princess,” Lady Tarly whispers after they sit. “The Prince of Summerhall has a message for you.”

Sansa turns to look at Lady Tarly as she passes Sansa the note. Sansa breaks the seal, and opens the note as her ladies sit.

_ Sansa, _

_ You may leave if you wish it. _

_ I do not want you to suffer. _

_ Jon. _

Sansa stares at the messy cursive of her Lord husband, and feels her chest heave at the words before she folds the letter and places it in the sleeve of her gown.

Jon.

Sansa does not know what to make of him, the man with the grey eyes and black beard. She thinks of what they have done together, and is bound by the chains of her guilt –a prisoner in her self-made prison.

Sansa knows herself; knows what she wishes, and what she hates. Sansa knows she wants to hate his touch – she knows she wants to be more disgusted by the thought of him than she was of her first husband, and yet she knows herself too well to know that that would never happen.

She is perplexed by the complexities of her internal battle, not knowing which side she truly believes. Some days she will yield her thoughts to the guilt she knows she should feel – guilt at the sin she has committed, and guilt of the enjoyment of it. Whilst other nights, when the moon hangs high and she allows herself to yearn for him, she shall open herself to the want for his touch – the need for his mouth on hers.

Every moment she thinks of him is a battle she is fighting – a war her mind cannot win. But for all that she may yearn for what he made her feel, Sansa knows to not trust whatever it was that he did for her to feel as she did – a fire which Jon’s hands built.

_ I am heir to the North, not a girl who becomes blinded by the touch of a man,  _ Sansa thinks, clenching her skirts in her hands,  _ I have fought Kings. I have fought Queens. I can fight a battle within myself too. _

And yet Jon has not spoken to her for days, and she has missed his voice.

The Queen, and her two Princes come to the cheers of the people that have lined the renovated dragon pits. Sansa had always thought the old pit would be destroyed one day, but after the invasion, the Targaryen’s had salvaged it for the three beasts they rode. The dome had collapsed long ago, and so Sansa could see the sky above freely, but she would not deny that she did not feel at ease within the pit. There had been whispers that the Queen had found wildfire in the base of the pit when they had first begun the renovation, but Sansa had heard nothing since.

They sit within a collapsing pit, a monument to the men of the past, and Sansa feels nothing but at home _. I am the stone of these walls, battered and bruised. I am the ruins of this keep; torn flesh to torn stones. _

Sansa places her hands over the railing, and leans forward, staring at Jon as he walks. He seems taller, despite her being many rows into the air. He has pulled his hair back today, and is in riding armour of red and black, with dragon glass scales running down the horn of his helm that he carries in his hand.

They all wear red and black, beautiful in their mighty extravagance.

Sansa gasps beneath her breath when she sees them.

The dragons.

She supposes she should find them beautiful, but truly, she sees nothing but terror.

It is when Sansa sees the Lannister’s being led out that her stomach begins to twist. Turning to glance at Tyrion, only to finds his face hidden by the armour of his guard. The memories of times past are so vivid in her mind then - the sound of her screams ringing through her ears like the bells of the Sept of Baelor.

Daenerys begins to speak, and the echoes of her voice consume the pit. Sansa barely listens, for she has had enough of lectures and speeches of might. Glancing to Tyrion once again, Sansa sees her friend look to the floor.  _ Please keep your eyes on the floor,  _ she thinks, before she begins to pray, d _ o not make him suffer. Do not make him hear their screams. Do not make him suffer. Do not make him cry. _

Sansa tears her eyes away from Tyrion to look into the pit further, fear consuming her as she watches the dragons begin to near. Jon stands beside Rhaegal – a beast of such size that Sansa wonders how she could ever think Jon Stark when he handles a dragon like this.

The Lannister’s are tied to their stakes, and Sansa looks to her ladies, before she whispers, “Turn away if you must, ladies.”

But Sansa knows she cannot look away.

And if she is honest, Sansa knows she does not want to look away.

Glancing at Jaime, whose head hangs low and who will not stare at the dragons as his sister is doing, Sansa feels a wave of grief slam over her, a tsunami of sorrow that she cannot fathom. Inhaling deeply, Sansa reminds herself that these are enemies of her family – not people she can grieve.

_ I should hate him,  _ she thinks,  _ I should hate Jaime Lannister for all that he has done, and yet I cannot force myself to. I pity him. I pity the man who destroyed my family. _

_ My mind is marred by division; sanity melting away like snow under flame.    _

The people are calling for the fire. The many wish to see death, demanding it more than the Stranger ever has, and Sansa knows then that she wants nothing more than the North and Winterfell. Kings Landing is a pit of serpents that she has been wrapped in for so many years, and as she watches the pit, she knows that the people here wish to see blood just as they prayed for food.

_ We live in glass castles, and one day, the people will see us for what we truly are,  _ Sansa thinks, her mind rotting as the sounds of the people's screams consume the air,  _ and it is so very easy to throw a stone at a glass house. _

Sansa looks ahead, braces herself, and waits to hear Daenerys speak.

“Dracarys,” Daenerys announces, her an echo of the death she delivers.

The fire burns so brightly Sansa nearly looks away, for all three dragons unleash their flames onto the lions of House Lannister. Sansa stares ahead, watching as she knows she must, until she hears the screams.

Cersei’s screams are the loudest, but it is the familiar screams of Jaime Lannister that causes her to look from the death she is witnessing.

Sansa need only look to her side, where Tyrion Lannister is being held, to see the new Lord of Casterly Rock looking to the fire and weeping. 

_ The Lions are dead. _

_ Hear them Roar. _


	14. A Little Light

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So mixed about this chapter but thank you all for your comments on my last one - it brightened my day so much! I was listening to the song "See a Little Light" by Bob Mould for the majority of this chapter. Really killer song. Very much what this story is about.

She hears their screams for days afterwards.

Hauntingly, they follow her like bells in her ears and every time she walks she hears them re rung, again and again.

It is when she dines with her family by law that the screams seem most excruciating.

They discuss the executions, and talk of the crowds that came to see their dragons, and Sansa cannot stomach it. So she simply sits beside Jon, and nurses her wine quietly as she bites her tongue, for she is surrounded by those who have confused justice with vengeance.

Sansa has already found herself biting her tongue this evening, for she had been barred from seeing Tommen before he began his journey North. Sansa had beseeched the Queen to allow Tyrion to see him at the very least, but she was met with the Queens silence and with admonishment from the white Prince that stood beside her.

“ _Tommen Waters is a bastard, and a traitor to our realm,”_ Prince Aegon had spat, his eyes narrowed and his false father standing beside him.

It is Jon Connington who had said, “ _A Princess of the House Targaryen needn’t see a traitor. It is an insult to you, my lady, and to your station.”_

 _“You forget, Lord Connington,”_ Sansa had said simply, “ _that I was a Queen of House Baratheon once, and a sister by law to that ‘traitor’. It is winter, and there is already chance Tommen shall perish – if I could just ask your grace to consider allowing the journey to be delayed by a sennight-“_

 _“You ask too much,”_ Lord Connington had said, enjoying his new title as Master of Laws too keenly. “ _The Queen has granted mercy for the happiness of a beloved niece by law and yet you continue to ask for more? Princess Sansa, you must relent.”_

 _“I shall not relent!”_ Sansa had snapped. “ _Who are you, Lord Connington, to inject yourself into a conversation between myself and her grace? I do not wish for your input, my Lord.”_

 _“I wouldn’t need to input if the Queens demands were met, and your belly would swell with the heir you have promised her,”_ Lord Connington had snapped. “ _But you have yet to swell, and it has been a moon, my lady.”_

Sansa had been so shocked that Daenerys had told him that her words had burst from her lips in such a fury, “ _I was unaware you would know so much about a woman swelling, my lord.”_

Lord Connington’s face had reddened so much so Sansa feared he would burst when the Queen holds her hand up, and addressed Sansa. “ _Enough. Tommen Waters will leave at the first moment, as promised. Lord Tyrion may visit him once the war has been won.”_

Sansa had been livid.

Livid that the ribbons that the Targaryen’s had wrapped around her wrists were being pulled by a man like Jon Connington, and livid that a man like Jon Connington gave her lectures on intimacy. Sansa hates the man, that she is sure, but it is unlike other hatred she has bared – this hatred that she feels for Jon Connington cannot be masked by one of her smiles, or by polite indifference. Every time she faces the man, with his dark eyes and judgement, she wishes for nothing but a sword in hand so she can hack him from his pedestal that he so loves to preach from.

It seems ridiculous, that Sansa cannot hold her anger as she has done for so many years prior. She knows what it means to lie without truly lying; to smile with no happiness, and to seem less than what she truly is. She has spent years pretending to be something else – pretending to be the perfect, silent bird they had made her into – and now she can barely pretend to enjoy a meal.

“We shall plan the coronation after we conquer the North,” Daenerys says simply, speaking to Aegon and Oberyn. Sansa shifts in her seat, uncomfortable that they are talking about lands that belong to her as if they are their own. “I wish for every major House to see us, and to come to the Capitol, and it shall take time before the winter truly begins to fade.”

“Spring it will be then,” Aegon says with a smile. “It shall be a great affair – we must begin renovating the Sept.”

“In time,” Oberyn says. “The Winter is not kind – we shall make sure the people are not starving before we begin to celebrate ourselves.”

“And what of the Riverlands?” Lord Connington asks. “Lord Baelish has declared for us, but he was declared Lord Paramount by the false King. The Freys, I believe-”

“The Frey’s should die,” Jon says simply.

Daenerys looks to her nephew, and cocks a brow. “You wish to kill an entire House?”

Jon does not blink as he says, “Yes.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Daenerys laughs, to the laughter of Lord Connington and Prince Aegon. “It would be barbaric.”

“It would be the same justice you unleashed on the Lannister’s,” Sansa says simply, defending her husband. “The Frey’s killed their King-“

“They killed the Lord of Winterfell,” Lord Connington cuts in, shaking his head. “Not a King of Westeros.”

Sansa’s head snaps up, and she can feel a pool of anger burning in her gut. But it is not she that speaks, but Jon, who snarls, “Do not speak out of turn, Lord Connington. You are speaking of the King in the North and my wife’s kin.”

“Your cousin was foolish in his titling of himself,” Lord Connington says. “Westeros is seven Kingdoms, not six.”

“My brother was King of the North, and the Trident,” Sansa snaps. “And how should you know, Lord Connington? You have been exiled most of your life and claim you know my lands better than my husband, or I do? You know nothing of Westeros.”

Jon looks to her, surprised. He is joined in his shock by the rest of the dragons, but Sansa has grown tired of biting her tongue and hoping her compliance grants her wishes. And most of all she has grown tired of Jon Connington, and his arrogance.

“Further yet, Lord Connington,” Sansa snarls, meeting the eyes of the man who holds himself higher than he truly is. For all that she can see, Jon Connington has climbed a mountain from his place and is holding on by the tips of his fingers, “the Freys nor Lord Baelish or any other Riverlands House have any right to the title of Lord Paramount. For if we are talking of birthright, as our Queen and her council have put so much importance on, as the last surviving daughter of the eldest child of the Tully House, it should go to Lady Lysa or … me.”

“You?” Lord Connington laughs.

“Yes,” Sansa says simply, before she glances at Daenerys who watches with a keen eye. Sansa finds herself spilling her words, heaving mountains of unspoken and repressed anger as she speaks, “as the Queen herself will be crowned before two heirs of an elder brother, why should I or my Aunt not receive the title that it seems Westeros owes us? Or mayhaps if the Queen does not see to it that her actions should be universal, then the lordship should go to my cousin who is Lord of the Vale.”

“One man or woman cannot hold so many lands!” Aegon spouts, annoyed.

Jon grits his teeth before he says, “Careful, brother.”

“Why?” Aegon snaps. “She speaks like a Lord rather than a wife!”

“And you speak like a pauper rather than a Prince!” Sansa snaps, satisfaction alighting her blood as she sees Aegon’s eyes darken. “You should remember, my Prince, that I am only speaking of things I know.”

Jon sits beside her, heaving with his anger. He opens his mouth to say something else, before Oberyn speaks up.

“Nephew,” Oberyn says, smiling as he claps Aegon on the shoulder. “Do you not love a good debate?”

Aegon does not saying anything, merely leaning back in his chair and taking his wine to his lips.

“Princess Sansa is right in her assertion that House Tully is the true Lord Paramount of the Riverlands,” Oberyn says, “just as we Martells are Princes of Dorne. And I agree that the Frey’s should be brought to justice – those who break bread and then spill blood are not those we should keep favour with.”

“And there is hope,” Daenerys says, finally speaking up, “that Lord Edmure still lives. Have you heard anything from your mother’s family?”

Sansa sighs, looking to Daenerys. “As Queen, I was not at liberty to receive letters from family. The last I heard of Lord Edmure was that he had got a child on his Frey wife, and that he was captive within Casterly Rock, but I know the Lannister’s and I fear him lost, your grace.”

Daenerys nods, before concentration fills her face and she cocks her head to the side, “What of the Blackfish?”

Sansa smiles. “He held Riverrun for a time in a siege before the Lannister’s recaptured the Keep.”

“That’s right,” Daenerys says with a nod, before she meets Sansa eyes. “Who would have thought, Sansa, that our two families would have so much in common. Stark, Tully and Targaryen – all facing extinction.”

Sansa shifts in her chair, looking away from Daenerys stare before Jon says, “House Stark has an heir.”

Sansa’s head snaps up as Jon says, “Joanna Stark is heir enough for the House.”

“Yes,” Daenerys says with a smile, before her smile drops and her eyes find Sansa’s again. “But of course we are speaking of lands we do not even have yet – the North is still the Bolton’s.”

“For now,” Sansa says.

Daenerys raises her glass to her lips, and nods. “For now.”

After dinner, Jon walks Sansa to her rooms in silence. Silence seems to be the only thing that they can agree on since their argument, and so of course silence becomes the only sound they share.

He does not offer his arm when they walk, and Sansa is glad for it. The sound of their steps follow them through the empty halls of Maegor's holdfast, and Sansa wonders if she should thank him for the note he had sent the weeks before at the executions, or if she should apologise for the argument. But she doesn’t, because she doesn’t know how to apologise.

He stops as soon as they get to her door, and Sansa gives him a small smile, before she opens the door.

Sansa hovers in the doorway for a moment, before she looks to Jon and stares at him. He dresses in black while his family dress in lavish cloth. He pulls his hair back, and wears no jewels but the ring that she had gifted him on the eve of their wedding. It strikes Sansa then, that Jon is everything she misses of the North, and of home.

“Jon,” Sansa says, causing his head to snap up.

“Yes?” He asks, almost hesitantly.

“Thank you,” She says, honestly, “for defending our family in there.”

A hardness sets into Jon’s face as he murmurs, “I shall always defend the Starks.”

“Thank you for defending me,” Sansa says, meeting his eyes hesitantly. “I don’t feel so alone in this court anymore.”

Jon blinks, before his lip twitches and he nods to her door. “Goodnight, Sansa.”

“Goodnight, Jon.”

 

* * *

 

_The North remembers._

_Lord Manderly awaits your arrival and rallies in your name._

_The Winter is harsh, and the North has no love for the Bolton’s, but they are said to peel men’s skin from their backs and so there is great fear here._

_You must have an army if you wish to win back the North._

Sansa reads the note, again and again, before she folds it and places it in the draw of her vanity. Sansa knows she should have been more eagerly awaiting the arrival of Shae’s note, and yet she had seemingly forgotten about her ladies maid in the past moon.

The thought of home – of the North – plagues her mind for the rest of the day. Sansa imagines Winterfell, and the way the snow would pile up onto the pane of her stained-glass window in the coldest of days. Sansa imagines the glass gardens, and how she would spend hours walking through the rows of winter roses and vines. Her father had always laughed, and said that she would turn into a winter rose herself if she continued to spend so much time pruning them.

It is like a faraway dream; a life she thinks she has led, but cannot truly remember. It has been years – years of perfectly constructed castles and fine embroidery and _summer._ Sansa had once thought it would be what she would want – a life of unrefined perfection of southron ideals.

But Sansa has lived a life of fine gowns and summer heat, and she wishes for nothing but the chill of a winter in the North.

On her way to Tyrion, Joanna lets go of her hand and begins to run.

“Mama!” Joanna sings as she runs. “Come catch me!”

“Joanna!” Sansa calls after her, picking up her skirts. This was not Maegor's, and so Sansa did not know who would be in the halls. “Joanna, come back!”

Sansa ran quickly, but it was not quick enough, for her daughter had already slammed into a guard's legs.

“Ow!” Joanna calls out, before she looks over her shoulder and a beaming, cheeky grin spreads across her face. “Mama, you can’t catch me!”

Sansa leaps forward, and snatches her babes hand into hers – pulling her to her skirts and tickling her sides, eliciting hysterical laughter from Joanna’s mouth. “But I did, silly one!”

“My Princess,” An accented voice says, and Sansa looks up, the smile that had occupied her face slipping into a more refined smile.

“Prince Oberyn,” Sansa says, smiling. “I am sorry for my daughter.”

Joanna giggles at her mother’s mention, and Prince Oberyn looks down, and grins broadly. “No apologies, please – the little lady needed someone to brake her rather quick run!”

“Yes, it is her favourite thing,” Sansa says, putting her finger to her babes lips to silence her laughter, “to run and hide from her Mama.”

“Daughters that run will cause headaches later,” Prince Oberyn remarks, before he bends the knee and grins broadly at Joanna. “Lady Stark, I do not believe I have met you properly.”

Joanna’s eyes are wide as she stares at Prince Oberyn, before she looks to her mother for permission to speak. “This is Prince Oberyn, sweetheart – he is Hand to the Queen and he is from Dorne.”

“I know Dorne!” Joanna exclaims, excited. “My Papa’s favourite horse was from Dorne – it was a sand steed and it went so fast sometimes we _flew_!”

Sansa looks nervously to Oberyn at the mention of Joffrey, but he does not voice his disapproval if he has it. Prince Oberyn simply smiles, and nods, “Well, I have a sand steed as well, my Lady Joanna. Do you want to know her name?”

Joanna nods enthusiastically, and Sansa grins.

“Her name is Nymeria,” Prince Oberyn says, and Sansa feels her smile slip from her face as she recalls another Nymeria. “And she goes so fast she too makes you feel like you’re flying.”

“Wow,” Joanna whispers.

“Mayhaps your Mama may let me take you one time,” Prince Oberyn says, looking up at Sansa.

“Oh, Mama, please!” Joanna says, tugging at her skirts as she looks up at her. “Please, Mama, please!”

“Maybe,” Sansa says, “if you are kinder to your Septa and a good girl.”

“I shall be good, I promise!” Joanna says.

“I will think about it,” Sansa promises, running her hands through Joanna’s dark locks.

Oberyn smiles, and places a little kiss on Joanna’s hand. “You have a very tough negotiator as a mother, my Lady Joanna. But you must behave.”

“I will,” Joanna assures him, “I will.”

Oberyn stands, and smiles at Sansa. “May we talk?”

“Of course, my Prince,” Sansa says, before she looks to where Lady Tarly follows. “Lady Tarly? May you take Joanna to Lord Tyrion’s rooms for me – I shall be there in just a moment.”

Lady Tarly smiles, nodding as she takes Joanna by the hand and begins to finish the journey they had started. Sansa feels Oberyn take her hand, and place it on his arm as they begin to slowly walk behind them.

“You seem to the be the only visitor Lord Tyrion has,” Prince Oberyn says.

“He is a good friend,” Sansa explains, “and my daughter’s kin. I would never keep my daughter from a beloved Uncle.”

Oberyn nods, smiling. “We have not spoken as often as I would have liked, my lady, and I wish to apologise for it.”

“You need not apologise, my Prince,” Sansa says, confusion consuming her. “Has the Queen commanded you to talk to me?”

Oberyn chuckles, before he looks to her face and sees something that takes the smile straight from him. He shakes his head, becoming sombre as he says, “No, my lady. She has not asked.” 

“Good,” Sansa says, feeling the anxiety she had felt washing over her in waves of false panic.

Oberyn is quiet for a moment, before he murmurs, “I am very sorry that you were treated in the way you were.”

Sansa halts in her walk, and looks to Oberyn, her eyes wide. “Pardon?”

Oberyn meets her eyes, and there is sorrow in his face – so much sadness that she can almost not comprehend why he was apologising to _her_. “Your husband raped, and beat you, and laughed at you, and Dorne knew of it and we did nothing.”

Sansa swallows her confusion, and begins to bite her lip. “I’m sure I understand, my Prince.”

“Ever since my sister Elia was beaten, and raped, and murdered,” Oberyn begins, his grief a song he sings so beautifully, “I have tried to protect women who have needed protection. I knew you suffered years before we invaded, and I wanted to formally apologise for our lack of action.”

Sansa looks to the ground, unsure of how she should respond, but Oberyn nods and says, “It must seem odd, I know, but I just wanted you to know that as Hand I shall protect you and your daughter as best as I can.”

“Do we need protection?” Sansa asks, panicked. Thousands of thoughts of burning fires and false promises fill her as the panic begins to rip the air from her lungs, before Oberyn shakes his head.

“No, no,” Oberyn assures her, taking her hand in his. “I do not want you to be scared, my lady, and neither does the Queen or my nephew.”

Sansa looks away, placing her free hand on her chest as she tries to rub the anxiousness from her lungs.

“And I know what you think of them,” Oberyn says simply. “I know you fear them. But I shall never let them harm you, Sansa, for as long as I am Hand and I am at court, I shall never let what happened to my sister and her daughter ever happen again.”

Sansa breathes deeply, before she whispers, “You think me like Elia?”

“You are not at all like her,” Oberyn says, shaking his head. “Not in any way – not in temper, or appearance. But it is your girl that reminds me of my niece.”

Sansa looks ahead, to where Joanna has been taken, before meeting Oberyn sincere gaze. “Joanna is bright, and wild, and laughs more than I think I have ever laughed in my life. She is not like him at all.”

Oberyn nods. “And Rhaenys was not like her father either.”

Sansa bites at her lip, before she looks to him. “You said you have tried to care for women who have needed protection?”

Oberyn nods.

“I have not heard any news of Lady Myrcella,” Sansa says. “I sent her a letter two moons ago, and she still has not replied. If you could tell me, truthfully, of her health?”

 

* * *

 

“So she wrote,” Tyrion says, when she begins to pour him wine.

“Yes,” Sansa says, chewing the sweet meat she had placed in her mouth. “It is in her print – gods, I could barely read it, but it is an improvement on when she could not write at all.”

A ghost of a smile stretches onto Tyrion’s face, and he nods. “And she is safe?”

Sansa places the cup on the small table beside them, and nods as she watches Joanna play with her doll by the fire. “Safe.”

The room he has been given is meagre, but Sansa knows she cannot complain. _They have given him his life, a room does not matter._

“Tommen was sent off as soon as they unchained me,” Tyrion complains, his eyes narrowed as he reaches for the cup. “But, I could be dead so I cannot complain.”

“It was still wrong,” Sansa says, leaning back in her chair. “I told them so.”

“Careful, my Queen,” Tyrion murmurs, “you are walking a tightrope above a pit of fire, and we do not want you to fall. After all, you are the one with power now.”

“Mama is no Queen!” Joanna pipes up, her blue eyes looking to her Great Uncle in dismay. “She is a Princess now!”

“Yes,” Tyrion says, his face animating to entertain his niece. “Yes she is! And what are you, my little animal?”

“A Stark!” Joanna parrots, to which Tyrion pats his knee and pulls Joanna to sit upon it. They are near the same size, but Joanna doesn’t seem to mind, nor does Tyrion. Sansa watches them with a small smile, knowing that for all Tyrion would grieve the loss of his brother, he would always have Joanna.

Sansa smiles tightly, continuing their conversation, “I wish I did not have it – it’s unfortunate it has landed in my lap.”

“Power is not unfortunate,” Tyrion says. “Painful, but always fortunate are the ones that have it.”

“It is not magic as you make it seem,” Sansa says, taking a sip. “I have news of Myrcella though – I spoke to Oberyn.”

“Surprised the viper did not kill Jaime himself,” Tyrion says, his voice muffled by the size of his cup as he drinks.

Sansa halts, watching her friend as he drowns himself in a red river of wine.

“Tyrion,” Sansa begins, tugging the cup from her friends mouth as she sees Joanna watching her Uncle, “mayhaps we should talk about Jaime and not be drinking so much? At least not around her.”

“Why?” Tyrion asks as he watches her place the cup on the table. “Why should we talk of Jaime?”

“Because you loved him, and it is awful to lose someone you love,” Sansa says simply, before a bubble of laughter bursts from her and Joanna hops down from his lap and returns to her doll. “Believe me, I seem to know all about it.”

“How is Myrcella?” Tyrion asks, ignoring her.

Sansa purses her lips, before she sighs. “I wrote to her about two moons ago, and I spoke to Oberyn about her lack of reply. Apparently, she is doing well – her betrothal to Trystane has obviously dissolved and she is returning to King's Landing where she shall be my lady.”

Tyrion’s snaps up. “She shall?”

“I have had Oberyn promise me,” Sansa says, before she begins to chew her lip. “I think he thinks me like his sister, in truth.”

Tyrion gazes at her, before he nods. “Elia Martell … Sansa, you are not like her.”

“We were both ill-fated Queens,” Sansa says simply. “I think he sees what his sister could have become in me. I think he sees Rhaenys in Joanna, despite their complete differences.”

“He sees a mistreated young girl who was forced to give birth to an underappreciated heir,” Tyrion says simply. “For all I know of Oberyn, he is a man keen on … pleasures of life.”

“I think he is a brother that grieves the loss of his family,” Sansa says simply. “Whatever he sees in me, does it matter? He is more inclined to listen, which we can use in a Hand.”

Tyrion is quiet, before he says, “Will she be able to see me when …?”

“Of course,” Sansa says, smiling. “As soon as she arrives at court.”

Tyrion nods, taking another sip of his wine before he looks her straight in the eye and says, “You know their favour with you shall soon run out?”

“What?”

“The longer as your belly remains bare, they shall soon begin to question your loyalty,” Tyrion says simply, before he laughs. “Gods, the whole court is speaking of the royal couples inability to touch each other.”

“You have been out of prison for not even two sennights.” Sansa laughs. “What should you know of the courts gossip?”

“I know enough,” Tyrion says, before he meets her eyes. “Have you …?”

Sansa’s cheeks burn as she snaps, “It is not your worry, Tyrion.”

Tyrion chuckles, and for the first time since she has seen him, the shadows of his grief lift from his eyes. _But of course, he only seems like himself when we talk of such private matters._

“But you have?” Tyrion asks, and Sansa narrows her eyes, before she nods. “Well it’s no matter then, the marriage cannot be dissolved-“

“Dissolved?” Sansa asks, shocked. “Who said it would be dissolved?”

If Tyrion was anyone else, Sansa was sure he would simply reassure her and move subject. But Tyrion is not anyone.

“I believe the whispers were coming from Lord Connington,” Tyrion says simply. “I heard he wishes for the marriage to be dissolved, and for Margaery Tyrell to wed Jon.”

“Jon Connington would better suit a spike than chair on the Queens small council,” Sansa seethes. “Who does he think he is? He is a man struck by luck that Varys thought to gift him a Prince as a false son!”

“So you are beginning to think him true then?” Tyrion asks.

Sansa purses her lips, hugging herself as she snaps, “Jon thinks Aegon is true, as does Daenerys.”

“It does not make him true to you-“

“-of course it doesn’t!” Sansa snaps. “I know history, I was a very good student, Tyrion, and if Aegon was to survive it would have been a miracle. But miracles do not happen in Westeros.”

“Nay,” Tyrion murmurs. “I went without wine for months – miracles do happen.”

Sansa admonishes him with a look before she says, “I don’t know if hes’ true, if I’m honest. He looks like Aegon would, speaks like a Prince would, and Gods, even Jon, when he’s not around me, seems to like him well enough.”

“When he’s not around you?” Tyrion questions.

Sansa shrugs. “I am not amiable to them. To Connington or Aegon – they think me a traitor who should have been put to the fire.”

“Then they are fools,” Tyrion says simply. “Fools who do not know these lands.”

“That is what I said,” Sansa murmurs, before she casts a look to Joanna. “But … but Jon thinks Daenerys plans to marry Aegon, and if she marries him then he shall be King and …”

“You needn’t worry,” Tyrion says. “It was just whispers.”

“Whispers that I am to get thrown aside to Margaery Tyrell!” Sansa laughs, hysterical. “These are not just whispers, Tyrion, these are threats.”

“Then you know what you must do,” Tyrion says simply, despite her questioning look. “You must lay with your husband.”

Sansa rolls her eyes, “Tyrion …”

“It is just sex,” Tyrion says simply. “Imagine him Loras or that guard you always did look to, but you must lay with him.”

“And I have!” Sansa snaps.

Tyrion rolls his eyes, before he captures Sansa’s hand in his and says, “The best weapon you can fight this war with is an heir in your belly. If you present them with a little dragon, you will be able to do as you please – live where you please.”

Sansa inhales deeply, before she snaps, “It is easier for you to say than for me to do.”

“Jon Connington wants you gone,” Tyrion says simply, before he begins to nurse his wine one more. “The longer you remain without a child the longer Lord Connington can campaign for Margaery Tyrell.”

Tyrion’s words echo through her mind all afternoon, but it is when Sansa is walking the halls later to clear her mind does she see her husband walking with his brother, and Lord Connington.

Sansa has half a mind to run in the other direction, and flee the scene, for she does not want to talk to _any_ of the men before her. But as soon as Sansa begins to lift her lilac skirts to turn, Aegon Targaryen spots her and smiles broadly.

“My Lady Sister!” Aegon calls, and Sansa feels her face go cold just at the sight of him. For all that she does not like the arrogance of Aegon, there is a mischievousness there that she rarely sees. _“_ Come! Join us!”

 _Kill me,_ Sansa thinks, before she places a smile on her lips and begins to walk towards the men.

“Princess,” Jon Connington says, bending his knee slightly in the shallowest bow she has ever seen.

“My Lord,” Sansa says simply, before she looks to Jon and nods, “Husband.”

“My Lady,” Jon murmurs, before they lapse into silence.

“I hear you were visiting Lord Tyrion today, my lady,” Aegon says, smiling. “How is the little Lannister?”

Sansa purses her lips, and meets her good brother’s eyes. “He is strong, despite the circumstance.”

“The circumstance of his mercy?” Aegon asks. “He should be extremely happy to have lived!”

“Sometimes it is not pleasure to survive, my Prince,” Sansa says, pursing her lips. “Not when you lose loved ones.”

“But it was said the imp barely liked his sister or father.” Aegon chuckles. “Apparently, they were vile to him.”

_They were vile to everyone._

“I suppose you would have to ask Lord Tyrion about such matters,” Sansa says simply.

“And what of you, good sister?” Aegon asks, smiling broadly. “Is there much news?”

Sansa cocks a brow, before glancing to Jon who is glaring, ashen faced, at his brother. “News?”

“News of an heir,” Jon Connington says, causing Aegon to choke on his laughter in shock at his false father’s abruptness. Lord Connington looks to her with a smugness she wishes to rip from his face, but she knows she cannot assault the man before her despite how much she may wish she could.

Sansa glances to Jon, who is seething in his place, before she meets Lord Connington’s eye and simply says, “I should ask the Queen to organise a wife for you, my lord. Mayhaps then you can ask a wife for an heir, rather than your Princess.”

Lord Connington’s face transforms from smug to angry within a matter of seconds. “I believe it is right for the Queens council to know if their Princess is barren.”

“She has a daughter,” Jon spits to Lord Connington. “Sansa is not barren and it is not your place.”

Lord Connington does not move his eyes from her as he says, “A daughter, yes, but four years without another heir to quicken in her belly? It would seem your wife was more barren than fertile, my Prince.”

Sansa looks to Jon, who steps forward with a clenched fist, before she moves to grab his hand. “Jon, leave it.”

Aegon watches this all unfold, before he steps forward and places his hand on Lord Connington’s shoulder, meeting Sansa’s eyes. “I apologise, Princess, Lord Connington is simply … passionate that House Targaryen continues.”

Sansa glances to Jon, who still looks as angry as before, before she looks to Aegon. “Mayhaps it should be Lord Connington who apologises, my Prince.”

“Jon,” Aegon says, turning to clap Lord Connington on the shoulder. “Apologise.”

Lord Connington sighs, before he looks to her and smiles tightly. “I’m sorry, my lady, my words were too forward.”

Sansa purses her lips, and wishes to tell the toad that is Lord Connington that she cares not for his apology, or his lack of appropriateness. Sansa wants to throw the apology in his face, and curse his name, but she knows she cannot, for she is not like Lord Connington.

“I accept your apology,” Sansa says. “You were too forward.”

Lord Connington’s eyes narrow before he nods, and offers her a false smile. “Passion requires forwardness, Princess.”

Sansa nods, before she looks to Jon who is inhaling deep breaths to control his anger.

“But Princess?”

Sansa looks up to Lord Connington. “Yes?”

“I know enough of passion to know that a wife must touch her husband to sire a child,” Lord Connington says, red faced, and red haired. “I hope you know as much, my lady.”

Sansa is a wolf then, teeth bared and blood pumping. Her Northern blood sings for violence, but her logic holds her back. _If I do as I wish, he will call me wild,_ Sansa thinks, before her fists clench at her side and her mind goes to home. _Arya would kill him,_ Sansa thinks, _or at the very least scream._

But she is not Arya Stark. Sansa is not a wolf of the North, not now; she is a bird whose wings are chained and who must bite her tongue for preservation. _But preservation lasts only so long,_ she thinks.

“I know how to sire a child, Lord Connington. My last husband taught me as much,” Sansa says simply. “And I hope, one day, you too shall be taught the same way I was on what it means to sire a child.”

Turning on her heel, Sansa walks away with anger as her only companion and unsteady breaths.

“Sansa!” She hears Jon calling, but she ignores him and hurries to her chambers.

Slamming the door after her, Sansa finds herself ripping at her gown as she remembers how _he_ felt. How his nails had dug into her skin, and how his knife had felt as it dug into her skin. She remembers how he would wrap his hands around her neck, and push the air from her until her screams would go silent. She remembers how she had begged him to stop, when he had forced himself inside her with no warning.

Sansa remembers everything; every scream, every ounce of pain, every tear has shed. It never goes away. It is a constant memory she fights to ignore – the memory of every time she had thought he would kill her, the memory of every scream that would scratch her throat as he stuffed his hand inside her mouth. Her pain haunts her, and she _hates_ it.

“Sansa.”

Sansa turns at the sound of her name, tasting salt on her lips as she sees Jon striding towards her.

“He’s a cunt,” Jon snaps, and Sansa wipes away at her face, before she finds herself walking towards him. “He shouldn’t have said that to you.”

_Passion. I should have more passion._

Sansa wrapped her hands around Jon’s neck, and pushed herself up on the tips of her toes before she captured his lips in hers. _Passion._ Kissing Jon lights a fire within her that she has only felt once before, and it is as intoxicating. Her veins are alight by the fire of his kiss, and her skin seems to crawl with the need for him.

She fists the hair at the nape of his neck, biting at his bottom lip as Lord Connington’s words ring in her ears. _Passion._ She knew passion. She knew enough of it to know a child need not be conceived with _passion._

Jon pushes her away, grey eyes meeting blue, and for a moment, Sansa thinks he will admonish her; that he will accuse her of using him. And there is a clear moment she can see him begin to do so, before his eyes travel to where her fingers are unlacing her bodice and she is forcing her gown from her.

She stands before him in her shift, stepping out of her gown as she pulls at the thin cotton of her shift. It is easier, to discard of her shift than it had been to discard her gown. Sansa stands before Jon, nude, and all she can think is _passion, passion, passion._

She thinks he will reprimand her, but he does not. Instead, he steps forward and wraps her in his arms – pulling her to his lips again.

There is a franticness this time – unspoken needs that need satiation, and violent desires that need indulging. Jon’s touch is gentle, as it always had been, but it seems softer now – a feather upon marble. Jon’s hands come to cup her cheeks, pulling her up and wrapping her legs around his hips.

His leather meets her core, and she feels herself begin to pool with the pleasure of her desires. Their kiss is suffocating, but they do not stop – they cannot stop. Jon begins to move them as Sansa grips his hair, feeling the furs of the bed beneath her back as Jon pushes her onto her bed.

Jon sits up, whilst she lays, removing his tunic and discarding it to join her pile of clothes. Her fingers are at his laces, frantic and fast, as her shallow breaths are swallowed by his lips once more.

“Sansa,” Jon whispers, his lips latching onto her throat. “Sansa.”

There is no readying this time; there is just _need._

She is consumed by him before he enters her; her heart fragments that she cannot fathom. Her name is a hymn on his lips, and she feels herself becoming lost to the feeling of him. _Passion, passion, passion,_ she thinks, wondering if this is what Lord Connington desired. But Lord Connington seems miles from them, and for a moment, it is just them, surrounded by the confusion of their lust.

He pushes her legs behind her head, and it is then she feels something she has only felt once before. _The fire._ Tendrils of it, shooting from her core to her heart to her mind to her fingers. Limb to limb, finger to finger, hair to hair, every cell is burning with the way Jon moves inside her, hitting something that is spreading euphoric delusion throughout her body.

Sansa knows then that she would burn for Jon Snow; she would set herself alight just to feel him within her, and it makes her wonder. She wonders f that is why Lyanna Stark did as she did and allowed the world to burn. _Is this what it means to be carelessly desirous?_  

He peaks with a cry, but not before she feels herself become delirious – his name whispered again, and again, and again.

It is over so quickly that Sansa cannot catch her breath, her lungs still hung on the words unspoken and her body still ready for the argument she had thought they would share. _Tingling,_ she thinks, heaving her breath as she feels Jon move out of her, _I’m tingling._

Jon lays in a heap beside her, but doesn’t say anything. They are silenced by the euphoria of their pleasure, and Sansa wonders if her mind has become a charred heap.

Sansa feels her fingers taken by Jon’s, wrapping themselves around his like vines around a pillar. Jon looks to her, sweat filled and panting, as he says, “Did I hurt you?”

Sansa shakes her head.

Jon closes his eyes, relieved. “I’m sorry.”

“For what?” Sansa whispers, unconsciously moving closer to him.

“For everything,” Jon whispers back, meeting her eyes. “For Jon Connington, and for Aegon. For how they spoke to you.”

Sansa looks to where a curl falls in Jon’s eyes, and she moves it away, watching as he falls between her fingers. Jon catches her hand in his, and brings it to his reddened cheek, her hands brushing the hairs of his beard.

Sansa cannot speak then, for she does not know what to say, and so she moves forward and places her lips on his, and hopes that her kiss says as all that she cannot.


	15. A Lady and a Dragon Prince

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A bit of fluff for you all before we get to the serious bits! I think my one goal is to get to 1000 kudos before chapter 16 but I don't know if I will get there before it. Anyways, I absolutely adore reading your comments - I'm really sick at the moment so it's the one thing I need to brighten my day because guess who went and grew KIDNEY STONES? 
> 
> Literally like ... what the fuck? Like what the fuck? Im 20 years old and I get KIDNEY STONES? That's what I said to my doctor, and she agreed - my body is fucked and I'm convinced I'm actually Joey Tribbiani because he's the only person I know who got kidney stones. 
> 
> Songs for this chapter: I need my girl by The National, and Wicked Game. Also Sweet Home Alabama because it's sort of a tune? (lol I love how i'm talking about this song as if i've discovered it when in reality I've loved sweet home alabama since I first watched con air and my love of con air then spawned a great love for the song How do I live by Leann Rimes which is my go to karaoke song/serenading song when I am drunk out of my mind). 
> 
> Anyways, enough of my rambling. Leave comments, I'm a slut for them (and most likely will update if I have more of them because, like, motivation). 
> 
> I hope you like this one!

Ser Jon does not want her gold.

“Why?” Sansa asks, confusion pouring through her.

Ser Jon has always accepted gold – a small purse that would fill his Houses coffers just a little more. Sansa hadn't chosen the Knight without thought – although it had been years since she had first decided to take the risk and bribe a guard. The House of Highsley had a Lord that gambled far too much, and a Lady that ordered Dornish wine by the barrel.

When Sansa had met Ser Jon, she had been introduced at the side of her husband, who had swiftly informed her that the newest member of the white cloaks is from a drunkard's house and to hope that he wouldn't have the same habits in King's Landing as his father did in the Westerlands.

Sansa had been hesitant, at first, but it had been Tyrion who had encouraged her.

_ “Your excursions will not be minded _ ,” Tyrion had chortled, dropping a purse of sovereigns before her. “ _ Not when you give him these. Ser Jon has a sister in need of a dowry, and you are in need of eyes that look the other way. It seems the perfect solution _ .”

And so Sansa had hesitantly invited the Knight inside her chambers whilst Joffrey had been hunting, coaxing him in with a kind smile and the promise of a nice ale. It hadn't been hard, to tempt Ser Jon into looking the other way whilst Sansa left the Keep at nights. Coin is the greatest bargaining chip; people can be brought easier than freedom can be won.

Ser Jon looks uncomfortable – something she has never seen on him before.

“I do not believe I am at liberty to tell,” Ser Jon says, shifting from foot to foot.

“But … does this mean you will tell the Queen?” Sansa asks, a familiar panic creeping up her spine and threatening to paralyze her. “You will go to her?”

It is blinding, her panic. And it's familiar – so familiar that Sansa wonders if she has seemingly dreamt these past moons, and nothing has truly changed. Still a Queen, still caged. Her breathing thins, and her cheeks flush, and her nails dig themselves into the skin of her hands. It is all the same as it was months ago – the panic still consumes her, as it always has.

Sansa doesn't know what it would mean, if Ser Jon was to go to Daenerys. All Sansa knows is that she cannot let what little freedom she has managed to get to be ripped from her, as it had been before. Sansa cannot go back to that life – the life of constant eyes, and constant whispers. Her life is already enough of a prison – her chain leading back to the man they had married her to.

“No, my Princess,” Ser Jon says simply.

“I … I have already been paid, my lady.”

“Already paid!?!” Sansa exclaims. “By who?”

Ser Jon looks away.  

“Ser Jon,” Sansa says, more urgently now. “I need to know if I can trust you. And I cannot trust someone who does not tell me the truth.”

“My Lady …” Ser Jon begins. “You have been a great friend, my lady, and very generous-“

“But you are not taking my coin anymore?” Sansa asks, trying to retain her calm. Ser Jon looks to the floor, before he sighs. “I have … I am being paid more, my lady.”

“By who?” Sansa snaps.  

Ser Jon sighs, before he meets her eyes and says, “The Prince of Summerhall.”

“Jon?” Sansa asks, stepping back in shock. The thought of her husband even knowing about their friendship is so foreign to her that it immediately sparks fear.  _ Jon is not Joffrey,  _ she reminds herself, dampening the panic that had threatened to consume her, until it is promptly replaced with the sheer confusion she feels. “Prince Jon is paying you!?!”

He nods. 

“What for?” Sansa demands, looking to him. “Is he asking you to follow me, or-“

“The Prince was the one that released me from the cells, my lady,” Ser Jon says simply. “I did not know it at first, for he has been quite … elusive. But the night I took you to see Lord Jaime, he was waiting for me with a pouch of coins and with an explanation. He said he had been informed by Lord Tyrion of our arrangement.”

Confusion is like a poison, tainting every thought and every word she thinks to say.

“This- why?” Sansa asks, so utterly confused she cannot even string a coherent sentence together.

Ser Jon’s lip twitches. “You should ask your Lord Husband, my lady. I fear he has more answers than I could ever give.”

Sansa finds him in the Godswood, or what is left of it, with Ghost by his side.

“Jon,” She says, causing him to look up from the mutilated stump that was once a weirwood.

“Sansa?” He asks, standing. “What’s happened?”

Sansa opens her mouth to speak, before she realises that he is bleeding – scarlet staining the white snow they stand upon. “Gods, Jon, what has happened?”

Jon looks to his knuckles in surprise, and shakes his head as soon as he sees the blood. “It is nothing, truly, just something from the training yard.”

Sansa takes his hand between hers, and shakes her head. “It is not  _ nothing _ – come, I’ll clean it for you.”

Sansa leads Jon to her chamber, and orders a handmaid to bring them warm water and a cloth. Sansa motions to where he should sit as she peels layer of furs from her back, revealing a gown of ermine and silk.

She sits as the handmaid returns with warm water, and Sansa smiles in thanks before she dips the cloth into the water.

“This will hurt,” Sansa murmurs as she places the warm watered cloth atop his knuckles. The wound has crystallised, with some of the blood going hard. Sansa sighs at the sight of it, and knows it must be hours old, although some of the wound is still seeping onto his hand. 

“It doesn’t hurt,” Jon says, before Sansa gets the spirit and pours the liquid onto his open wounds.

“Ah, fuck!” Jon grunts, before his cheeks redden and Sansa smiles.

“You men are always the same,” Sansa muses, a smile on her lips despite herself. “They all think they’re strong enough to deal with pain, and then surprisingly when pain comes, they act as if they are the first to feel it.”

Jon snorts, shaking his head, “I have known more pain than most men, Sansa. A lot of the men of the Knights Watch have.”

Sansa pushes the spirit soaked cloth into his wound, and he curses again, to her laughter. “Once a man battles in the birthing bed, I’ll believe him to be a true warrior.”

Jon winces. “Was it truly that bad?”

Sansa takes a moment to remember the pain, before she nods. She can remember it so vividly that sometimes she wishes she didn’t have such vibrant recollections. The pain is like a fog that she shifts through, tainting every and any memory she has of that night in the birthing bed. Sansa can remember listening to her mother's screams when she had birthed Rickon, and had thought the birthing bed to be the most scariest of battlefields. But when she had entered her mother's bedchamber, Sansa had been quick to realise that for all the noise her mother was making, the outcome was not near as gruesome as she had expected. 

Once Sansa was in a birthing bed of her own, she had rescinded all thoughts of her mother's screams being over exaggerated. The pain had been so consuming that Sansa could not recall if she even conscious for most of it. The haze is as powerful as the pain, and so much of Sansa’s memory of the night she gave birth is tainted by the unsureness of if it is true memory or not. _The night Joanna was born is like a dream._  

“Yes. It felt like I was being torn in two and then cut in half again. But … pain is easily forgotten for love. And a babe is the greatest love you could have.”

“Yes,” Jon agrees, watching as Sansa cleans the wound. Sansa moves the candle closer to the wound so she can see it a little better, and decides that he shall not need stitching. However, as she analyses the wounds closer, she finds herself pulling out splinters of wood that are nestled deep within her husband's knuckles. “It looks it.”

Sansa looks up, meeting his eyes before she remembers. “I spoke to Ser Jon today.”

A shadow falls over Jon’s face, and he sighs. It is like he has been caught by Old Nan for sneaking a lemon cake - chagrin on his face. “And what did Ser Jon tell you?”

“That he could not accept my coin,” Sansa says, beginning to wrap his knuckles in cloth, “for my husband is paying him.”

Jon does not say anything.

Sansa meets his eye, and feels like shaking him.  _ Why would you do such a thing,  _ she wishes to scream. She is not angry – no, anger has passed long ago. Sansa is simply curious – confused as to why Jon would do this. Did he wish her to be followed? Did he wish to spy on her? 

“How did you even find out?” Sansa whispers, so confused. 

Jon’s jaw locks, and he meets her eyes. “Ser Jon was not to speak of this to you.”

“I was rather forceful,” Sansa says, before she began to bit his lip. “And when he wouldn’t accept my coin, well, I thought he would go to the Queen.”

Jon chortles, laughing so loudly it startles her. He shakes his head, almost in disbelief before he meets her eye and says, “I have paid him so much more coin so that he would  _ not  _ speak or take any coin from you.”

Sansa ties the bandage tightly. “Ser Jon is a good man, Jon – a friend.”

“You can’t trust friends you pay.”

“I have paid him long enough,” Sansa says. “He knows how much I fear someone finding out about our involvement.”

Jon looks to the bandages on his hand, before Sansa begins on the other hand. “No, Sansa, you don’t need to-“

“I am your wife,” Sansa cuts him off. “At least let me do this.”

Her words throw Jon into silence again, and Sansa continues on with the hand before she begins her interrogation. “You have been speaking to Tyrion, then?”

Jon seems petulant when he answers, “I have been speaking to him since before we were betrothed.”

Sansa’s movements halt. “What?”

If a person could be a pout, it was Jon in this moment. “I … he was your friend, and I wanted to know you better.”

Sansa is stunned into silence, and watches as Jon runs his hand down his face before a sigh of exasperation escapes him and he turns to her. “Sansa … I never wanted you to not see them. Jaime or Tyrion. But when Tyrion told me of Ser Jon, I also knew I couldn’t allow your name to be attached to something like that. I am Dany’s nephew, but you, you are just my wife. I can’t allow anything to happen to you, and if you were to be found bribing a guard and visiting traitors, well, I don’t know what would happen.”

“And so you bribed him for me?” Sansa asks. “So that  _ you  _ could be the one to betray your Queen?”

Jon shakes his head, a breathy laugh escaping him before he looks to her. “I wanted to keep you safe.”

Sansa stills on his hand, and feels her heart stutter in her chest as she stares into his dark grey eyes. Sansa Stark has not known safety since her childhood in the North, and even know as she looks to the man who is promising her safety, she wonders if it will be true. For all that she could never doubt Jon’s intent, Sansa also knows that Jon Snow, despite his parentage, is exactly like her father and her father's intent caused his head to be cut from his shoulders.

But as Jon stares at her, there is a warmth in his eyes that she has not seen in a long time; a warmth for her. Their coupling is strange, and bursting with the flames of desire, and yet conversation is like trying to build a house with a ice beneath a burning sun. It melts away, and away, until they are left with nothing but puddles of their failure.

Jon analyses her face, before he whispers, “Is that so wrong? For me to want to keep you safe?”

“No.” Sansa shakes her head. “No, it’s … it’s good.”

“Sansa,” Jon murmurs, his hand coming to grasp her own. “Sansa, I-“

There is a knock at the door.

“Princess?” A guard calls through the door.

Sansa tears her eyes away from Jon’s, and pulls her hand from his as she calls, “Yes?”

“Lady Joanna is here to see you.”

Sansa looks torn. She looks to Jon, and winces slightly, before she says, “We can talk more later?  

Jon nods, standing as Sansa opens the door to her daughter who is babbling about her lesson. Sansa had been hesitant for the Septa to begin teaching her girl, for Sansa knew it was not proper for a girl of four to have lessons with a Septa but it had been Daenerys who had said that the heir to the North must know her lands and so Sansa had agreed to the lessons.

It is when they are walking through the halls that Joanna begins to tell stories her Septa was telling her of the North.

“For I am heir, Mama, and that means the North will be mine one day,” Joanna says as she swings her hands between Jon and Sana’s.

“Mayhaps,” Sansa says. “But you may one day not be heir, my wolf.”

Joanna’s eyebrows furrow, confused.  “Why?”

“If your Mama has another babe, and that babe is a boy he shall be heir,” Jon says, before he shakes his head. “But do not fret, Joanna – it is no fun being heir anyways.” 

“Who will she have a babe with?” Joanna asks, blinking up at them. 

Sansa’s cheeks burn as she explains, “Well, one day Jon and I might have a baby, Joanna.” 

“But not yet,” Joanna says. 

Jon shakes his head. “No, not yet.” 

“Were you heir?” Joanna asks, looking up to her stepfather.

Jon chokes on his laughter. “Ugh … no.”

“Why not?”

Sansa cannot help but laugh at Joanna’s perplexity.

“I think that’s a story for another day.”

They walk for a while, before they part. Jon is called away by a guard to a small council meeting, but seems torn as to whether he truly wishes to go. But nonetheless he offers Joanna a large apology, and tells Sansa that they shall speak later, before disappearing into the halls further into the Keep.

Sansa and her daughter walk for a little while longer, before they pass Lord Connington, whose face is discoloured by the ugliness of black bruising. Sansa openly gapes at the sight of Lord Conningtons cut lip, and swollen face, but he passes so quickly and with such disdain that she can barely see the damage.

“Mama?”

“Yes, my love?”

“What is wrong with that man's face?” Joanna whispers, watching as Lord Connington rounds a corner and goes from their sight.  _ Many things,  _ Sansa wishes to say. 

“I don’t know,” Sansa says, feeling a panic crawl up her skin as she recalls Jon’s bloodied hands.  _ Oh, Jon. _

“He must have fallen,” Joanna muses, before she meets her mother’s eyes. “But that is a very big fall, Mama!”

“Yes,” Sansa says, before she tugs on Joanna’s hand. “Come now, we must go.”

It is later, after Joanna is put to bed and Sansa eats her dinner alone, that Jon goes to her.    

“Wine?” Sansa asks, pouring herself a cup.

Jon shakes his head, looking to where Ghost lounges before the large hearth. It is almost strange, for the two of them to be alone without the pressure of procreating getting in the way. Sansa doesn’t know which one she prefers, for both are equally as confusing as the other.

Sansa bites her lip, before she sits on the bed. There is an anxiousness that crawls up her skin – a feeling of anticipation consuming her as she wonders if this visit will be like their previous nightly visit. Sansa does not understand that part of their relationship; the part where they ignore their relation, and whatever guilt they felt over coupling, and simply laid together as man and wife.

It is messy, and complex, and so very  _ grey  _ that Sansa does not know what to make of it.  _ Should I hate him, or should I love him as a brother? Should I desire him as a husband or feel repulsed at my own feelings? Should I feel guilt at our coupling, or should I see it as a way to an heir and to the North? _

Sansa cannot even think to ponder the way Jon’s hands make her body feel – the way, at nights when her ladies maids are truly asleep, that her fingers find their way to her core and she thinks of his kiss? Or that, despite her repulsion and guilt, she wishes for nothing but the feel of him within her,  _ caring  _ for her and promising her safety.

_ I am torn in two by my guilt and my desire. My convictions are halved by my wanton wants, and it blinds me. _

“I saw Lord Connington in the hall earlier,” Sansa says, conversationally. Jon’s head snaps up, and she cocks a brow. “I did not think his face could get  _ even  _ uglier, but it seems it has.”

“Lord Connington hates you,” Jon says simply. “For nothing but your name. He talked to you like he was something more than you, or that he knew at all what you had endured. He’s a twat, and I-“

“Beat him to a pulp?” Sansa giggled, placing her hand onto her lips to stop herself.

Jon’s lips twitched. “Not a pulp.”

Sansa shakes her head, before she meets his eyes and bursts into unadulterated giggles. She places her arm in front of her mouth to try to muffle her laughter, but it doesn’t do that well of a job as soon Jon is joining her laughter – a belly bellow that echoes throughout the room and causes them both to kneel over with laughter.

Sansa takes a sip of her wine, still aching from her laughter, before she shakes her head and says, “You shouldn’t have hurt him.”

Jon shrugs. “I shouldn’t do many things.”

“But thank you,” Sansa says, allowing herself to smile. “Seeing his face like that is truly the best thing I’ve seen in moons.”

Jon grins, chuckling to himself before they both sober – the crackling of the fire being the only sound between them.

“I am sorry,” Jon says, “for what they said to you that night.”

“You couldn’t control it-“

“But I should have defended you,” Jon says, leaning back in his chair before he sighs deeply.

“Why didn’t you?” Sansa asks, genuinely curious.

Jon looks up, and then looks to her, his eyebrows tugging together before he opens his mouth to say something. But he simply shrugs, and says, “I don’t know.”

Sansa sighs, knowing that a large part of her wanted something more than  _ I don’t know.  _

“I wanted to apologise, actually,” Sansa says, feeling the familiar guilt glare in her gut.

Jon’s head snaps up. “For what?”

“For-“  _ using you for a child. For acting like I did not care how you felt. For going behind your back. For treating you as I would Joffrey.  _ “For not discussing with you the agreement I had made with the Queen.”

Jon’s eyes alight in surprise, before they lapse into silence. Sansa had expected him to at least acknowledge her apology, and yet it seems like water off a duck's back to her husband, who seems keener on the sight of the fire burning in the hearth than of replying to her words.

Jon laughs then, abrupt and jolting. Sansa looks to him as the silence between them is shattered and he chuckles, the sight of him seeming more and more mad. “We have acted like fools.”

Sansa cannot stop the shocked laugh that escapes her. “Yes.”

Jon meets her eyes. “Forgive me.”

“I asked you first,” Sansa says.

Jon cocks a brow. “Are you teasing me?”

“No,” Sansa replies, before she grins – feeling as a large weight has been pulled off her chest.

Jon returns her grin, before he says, “Remember those old sweet cakes Old Nan used to make?”

“The ones with the apple and cinnamon?” Sansa asks, her mind flooding with memories of a rushing to the kitchens to get the first cake. She can remember the rush, then, and the way she would have to force Jon and Robb to the ground as she sprinted to the kitchens. “Yes! You and Robb would devour them all before I even got to them!”

Jon laughs. “You would push us into the mud just to slow us down.”

“You deserved it,” Sansa quips, grinning. “I haven’t had something that tasted like that since I was ten and three.”

Jon’s grin slowly dims, before he looks to Sansa, his grey eyes burning. “We will live there, soon.”

“Just a war to win first,” Sansa muses, biting her lip, “and a child to sire.”

Jon looks into the fire as he says, “I want our children to know nothing but Winterfell. I want them to have lemon cakes, and sweet cakes, and Old Nans stories-“

“And the name Stark?” Sansa says, biting her lip. “I want my children to have the name Stark, Jon.”

Jon meets her eyes, and laughs breathlessly. “You know I once dreamt of it? Being a Stark? Being the trueborn whilst Robb was the bastard.”

Sansa bites her lip, imaging Jon as a motherless child whilst they lived at Winterfell. “It is good you were not the trueborn. It didn’t work out for Robb, or for Bran and Rickon.”

Jon casts a distraught look to her, before he laughs bitterly. “Only a girl and a bastard left.”

“A Lady and a dragon Prince,” Sansa corrects, a bitter smile on her face as she takes another sip of her wine.

“Forgot, for a moment,” Jon explains, casting her a look.

“That I’m a Lady or that you’re a Prince?” Sansa asks.

Jon laughs. “I could never forget that Sansa Stark was a lady.”

Sansa smiles, her eyes traveling from his dark, unruly hair to his eyes. It is then, as they are laughing, that Sansa can imagine herself happy. She can see herself kissing him, and laying with him, and all without guilt. She can see herself laughing at his reservedness, and smiling when they are alone. She can see how her life would be with him – a life that meant happiness, and safety.

It is her chest that begins stirring at first – burning with a warmth that seems so much like the fire she had felt when they had consummated their marriage. And yet this fire does not need to be extinguished. It is constant, and warming, but never unbearable as the other fire is. This fire is different; stronger. She doesn’t understand it, and she does not think she will ever truly understand it.

“Sansa?”

Sansa looks up. “Yes?”

“I want … I don’t want us to fight,” Jon says simply. “Not here. Not now.”

“I don’t want us to fight either,” Sansa whispers, feeling her gut wrench.

Jon rubs his beard, before he meets her eyes and says, “The other day, after you saw Lord Connington in the Hall … why did you kiss me?”

Sansa’s cheeks burn brightly as she shifts her eyes away from him. “I- um-“

It is a strange thing, to be asked for the thought behind actions that had seemed so natural and yet Sansa does not know what to say to her husband. She could tell him that she thought it prudent to lay together, but that would a lie. She needs an heir, but that day, after Lord Connington had insulted her before the eyes of two Princes, she had not cared for thoughts about heirs or her agreement with the Queen.

She remembers that she felt alone; a loneliness she hadn’t felt in years. She remembers she had felt the same inadequacies she once battled while Cersei was her goodmother, constantly wounding her with words. Sansa remembers that for all her bravery, and courage, the words of Lord Connington seemed to familiar to ignore and so she had succumbed to them.

And then there is another part of Sansa that knows a truth she doubts she will say aloud. Sansa … wanted Jon. She wanted him with a burning passion that she could not hold herself from kissing him when he had come for her. Sansa wanted the feel of his lips on hers, and his hands on her skin, gentle and soft and so very different to how she had ever been touched before.

Sansa had wanted the taste of him to consume her, and the scent of their coupling to fill the room. Sansa had wanted nothing more than to be held, warm and safe, against the stronghold of his chest. Sansa had wanted his eyes to look at her the way they had on the first night they had laid together; familiar eyes filled with a fire that burned for  _ her  _ and not her pain.

Sansa had wanted Jon, but wanting him was painful. Sinful.  _ Wrong. _

Sansa swallows her thoughts, and simply says, “I was hurt, and upset. I … needed someone to hold.”

Jon stares at her, his gaze unmoving from her eyes, before he nods, accepting her answer. He stands, abruptly, and wipes his pants before he whistles for Ghost to get up from the fire.

“You’re leaving?” Sansa asks.

“It is late,” Jon says, his hand coming to graze Ghosts head. “And I should leave you to sleep.”

She wants to tell him to stay. She wants to kiss him as she has done once before, with no thought of rejection or doubt infiltrating her mind. She wants to lead him to her bed, and enjoy the pleasures of his body. She wants to tell him that she wants him, and needs him. But … she can’t.

The words are stones in her throat, and she is too weak to force them from her.

And so she simply blurts, “Thank you, Jon.”

Jon looks up, his eyebrows furrowing. “For?”

“For Ser Jon,” Sansa says simply, knowing she can tell him this. “For … for everything.”

Jon halts in his step, his lips taking an ‘o’ shape as he open his mouth to speak. The same fire that is within her burns within his eyes, and Sansa knows that look; she has seen it when they have lain together. Sansa wants him to ask her to join him – wants him to ask for her to do her duty as his wife.

But he simply swallows, nods, and says, “Goodnight, Sansa.”

Sansa watches as he heads to the door. “Goodnight, Jon.” 


	16. Stumble, Fall, Crash

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all so much for your kind wishes about my bloody kidneys! I'm on the mend, and it's not as painful as it sounds (maybe I just have a high pain tolerance) but anywho it is all very much appreciated. 
> 
> Like always, I'm a slut for comments and kudos so leave as many as you can! And OMG you guys totally smashed the last goal of 1000 kudos - I totally didn't think we'd get there before this chapter but holy FUCK you guys totally showed me up! 
> 
> Made the last few days for me, and the last few days haven't been that great, mostly because my spotify account was hacked and the fucker changed email addresses so I've spent like two days trying to get spotify to sort it out and they FINALLY did meaning I could listen to my writing playlist and thus here is this chapter. 
> 
> Songs recs for this chapter: Witness by Katy Perry, The Girl with the Flaxen Hair by Debussy (it always gives me a classical music erection and god is it just a score for Sansa go check it OUT), Higher Love cover by James Vincent McMorrow, and Notion by Tash Sultana. Awesome music to listen to. 
> 
> Enjoy! Comment! Boost my fragile ego (lol thats a joke)! Seriously read the chapter already!

“Careful, please!”

Jon laughs, bold and brilliantly, the whites of his teeth shining brightly despite the greyness of the skies above. “I always am, Sansa.”

“Do not joke, Jon!” Sansa snaps, watching with wide eyes as Joanna is adjusted on his stallion. “I- mayhaps I should get her something for her head, Jon?”

“She shall be safe with me,” Jon says, steering Red over to where Sansa stands in the mud – her long cloak dragging behind her as she moves from the horse's path. “Truly, Sansa, I saw you hundreds of times with your father atop his horse!”

“Mama, look!” Joanna giggles, holding tightly to the black stallions hair. “I’m riding!”

Sansa breathes deeply as she screams internally. “Yes, my sweet, I can see.”

Jon meets her eyes, his smile so wide she thinks it might burst from his face.  _ He is laughing at me,  _ Sansa thinks, anger consuming her before she finds herself staring at his smile – a smile so beautiful that it seems moulded from the heavens above.

“Truly, Sansa,” Jon says, chuckling. “I promise I shall not let her fall.”

Sansa can see it now; her babe falling from that large horse. “Mayhaps she should start on a pony, Jon? I- Red is very large and I don’t think I’m comfortable-“

Jon kicks Red into a slow trot, and Joanna’s giggles consume the courtyard as Red circles around Sansa. Her heart thuds against her chest, bursting with the panic of all that could happen, and yet as she watches them on the horse, her babe sitting between Jon’s legs and laughing so freely, Sansa knows she is smiling.

She feels her cheeks will burst if she continues smiling as she is, but she cannot help it; Joanna has lit up unlike ever before whilst on the back of Jon’s horse, and Sansa knows then that Joanna is a true Stark.  _ Gods, if Arya was to ever get a hold of Joanna they would make the most dangerous pair. _

Jon laughs as well, a deep, guttural laughter that causes Sansa to shift from side to side as a wetness builds between her legs. It is so easy, sometimes, with Jon as her husband.

“Mama, look!” Joanna giggles, her raven hair flying behind her and into Jon’s face. Sansa watches, her stomach churning with a sickness it had been consumed with most of the morning, before she laughs.

“I see, I see! Jon- gods, Jon don’t go too fast!”

He laughs loudly as he shouts, “Relax, Sansa!”

Sansa looks to the men that have come to watch; the castellan and the men that work in the yard. Sansa has already acknowledged them, but they too seem to be captivated by the  dragon Prince and the girl who was once a Princess riding together, although Sansa doesn’t think they were as concerned as she is.

Jon comes to a halt on Red before her. “No, Jon, keep going!”

“I think that is enough,” Sansa says, her fingers twitching to pull Joanna from the back of the horse.

“I think your mother is a bit worried, Anna,” Jon says in Joanna’s ears. “We should not make her worry more.”

“Come, now,” Sansa says, holding her hands up to pull Joanna down.

“But Mama-“

“Now,” Sansa warns, pulling Joanna from the horse and ignoring Jon’s laughter. Sansa places Joanna on her feet, and brushes her hand through her babes hair as she explains. “We will have to get you a pony, my wolf – Jon’s horse is too big for you.”

“But I WANT to ride with Jon!” Joanna cries, her foot stamping and Sansa sighs.  _ Tantrums abound. _

Sansa kneels to the ground, and pulls Joanna to look at her. “Joanna, I have explained why you cannot ride with Jon. Red is too large, and you are too little-“

“But I’m NOT little!” Joanna cries. “I am a big girl.”

Sansa sighs, knowing this will not end well, before she hears Jon dismount and kneels beside them.  “You must listen to your mother, Joanna – Red is very big, and it is very dangerous. I was not a very good rider when I was your age, and I often fell, so your mother is just protecting you.”

“But-“

“Listen to-“  _ your father _ , she was about to say. It is easy, with Joanna’s dark, wild hair and brazen attitude to imagine Jon as her father. They have similar mannerisms; both true wolves. Lately, her dreams have been consumed with the same sight – a babe with Jon’s eyes, and her hair. It is a sight she knows so well know that she wonders if it will ever truly happen. It strikes her for an only a moment, before she continues, “- to Jon.”

Joanna pouts, before Jon nudges her with a laugh. “Now cheer up – we have to go feed Red now. Have you ever fed a horse before?”

“Yes!” Joanna says, her pout transforming into a smile. “I fed my Papa’s horse!”

Jon grins, before he meets Sansa eye and stands, grabbing hold of Red’s reigns and Joanna’s hand. “Come then. Mama and I can help you feed him.”

 

* * *

 

 

The welcome for Myrcella Waters is a small one.

The Queen had forgone attending, and so had the Princes. The Queen's lack of attendance meant that few members of the court had even made it to the docks below the Red Keep, leaving Sansa and Tyrion standing rather lonely.

Sansa does not mind, though. She thinks if Myrcella is anything as she remembers her, the shy, quiet girl Sansa had met so long ago in the yard of Winterfell, she would not mind such a sparse welcome. But there is a part of Sansa, the part that was taught how to survive the court she had once presided over, that knows the insult of the Queen's absence.

The message is clear; Myrcella Waters has no esteem in King's Landing. It is cruel, and so loud, and Sansa wishes that it was not as it was. But Sansa stood proudly before the docks, with her ladies flanking her and with Joanna’s hand in hers, and Sansa  _ knows  _ she will not let them laugh at kin.

When Tyrion Lannister sees his niece, he nearly stumbles against his cane.

Myrcella Waters is a woman grown, and flowered – beautiful in her radiance and the sun in this winter. She wears a fine gown of heavy tangerine silks, and her golden hair is worn loose.  _ She looks like her mother,  _ Sansa thinks,  _ save for the scar.  _ It is ugly, yes, but scars always are. Beauty cannot be found in something that was once pain.

Myrcella curtsies low when she stands before Sansa, and Sansa spies a Septa beside her, watching with narrowed eyes and high expectations. Sansa remembers a time that Septa Mordane would do the same for her, except in that time Sansa was the one bowing to Myrcella.

_ My memories are strangers, alien in my own mind. _

Sansa steps forward, and smiles greatly. “My Lady Myrcella.”

Myrcella rises, her green eyes shining with the unsureness of her position. “My Princess.”

“We have been waiting a very long while for you, my Lady,” Sansa says, smiling as warmly as she can, for she can see the fear in Myrcella's eyes.  _ I know what it means to be afraid.  _ “May I present Lady Joanna Stark, your niece, and your Uncle, Lord Tyrion Lannister, Warden-“

Tyrion has pulled Myrcella into an embrace before Sansa can get the words from her mouth, but it matters not.

_ There will be much time for talking. _

Sansa had decided before she had come to the docks that they would eat in her chambers – a place that Myrcella would come to know well. It is awkward at first, but when they walk through the halls, Sansa can see the recognition light itself in Myrcella's eyes – a woman guided by the ghosts of her past.

“She is so big,” Myrcella comments as she watches Joanna with one of Sansa’s dolls. “Bigger than I ever imagined.”

“Yes,” Sansa says, smiling indulgently. “Before I know it she shall be a woman grown.”

“We have a little time for that,” Tyrion says, patting Sansa’s hand before he turns to Myrcella. “Now … did they explain what your life would be like now that you are in the capital?”

Myrcella looks nervous, her green eyes shifting between Sansa and Tyrion. Sansa smiles once more, and places her hand on Myrcella's. “Myrcella, please, you are safe here. You are the blood of my daughter, and that shall always mean you are kin.”

Myrcella breathes a sigh of relief, before she says, “They told me I would be a lady of yours, my Princess-“

“Sansa,” Sansa corrects. “I am only Sansa to you.”

“When you are alone,” Tyrion warns, his eyes flicking between them both. “Sansa is a dragon now, and we mustn’t let the dragons know we still get along.”

“Hush,” Sansa admonishes, rolling her eyes. “Truly, Myrcella, they are not as bad as your Uncle is making them out to seem.”

“I did not think them bad,” Myrcella admits, before she begins to chew on her lip. “I have lived in Dorne for so long and I learnt so much there that I … I never thought them awful.”

“Good,” Sansa says, before she too bites her lip. “But … but you must not mistake them for kind either, Myrcella. They are not friends – gods, they are not even mine.”

“But-“ Myrcella breaks off, confused. “But … didn’t you know your husband from before? Did you not grow up with him?”

Sansa nods. “Yes, I did. You would have seen him on your visit to Winterfell.”

Myrcella leans forward, interest consuming her face. “Is he as they say he is? Is he truly … truly the winged wolf?”

Tyrion chuckles while Sansa rolls her eyes. “He is nothing but a bastard, I’m afraid.”

Sansa glares at Tyrion. “Don’t ever call him that.”

Tyrion cocks a brow, daring her with his surprise. “My, did I touch a nerve?”

“He is not a bastard,” Sansa snaps, before she casts a glance to Myrcella and sees the girls face drop.

“Being a bastard is no shame,” Tyrion explains. “And he shall never not be a bastard, Sansa – he shall always be Jon Snow, who thinks himself lesser and undeserving, no matter what crown they put on his head.”

Sansa pauses, looking to Tyrion incredulously before his words reverberate through her mind.  _ He shall always be Jon Snow.  _ For all that Sansa had told herself that she knew her husband, Tyrion has seemingly thrown a bucket of cold water over her head and forced her to realise she truly  _ doesn’t  _ know him.

_ He shall always be Jon Snow, who thinks himself lesser and undeserving. _

Sansa digest Tyrion’s words slowly, wondering if that is the truth. Does Jon truly believe himself undeserving of his birthright? Does Jon truly believe himself to be a bastard?  _ The pain of the past does not go away just because the future negates it,  _ she thinks,  _ they called him bastard before they knew his name. He shall never think himself truly deserving – not when he is haunted by the ghosts of a name he once knew. _

It is an assault on her mind – a realisation she cannot seemingly ignore. All his actions, every word spoken, is validated by the realisation that beneath the crown and the jewels they force him to wear, he is nothing but a boy called a bastard and forced to bare the shame of parents he did not even know.

“Wine, my dear?” Tyrion asks, but Sansa’s stomach churns at the smell of it.

“No, I’m fine,” Sansa says, shaking her head before she looks up and smiles. “Being my lady shall not as difficult as you would think – it’ll be more like we’re friends, Myrcella.”

Myrcella smiles faintly, before she asks, “How long will you … will you keep me as a lady?”

“Until you wish to marry I suppose,” Sansa says simply, before she glances to where Tyrion sits, “or when you wish to no longer be one. It may seem frightening, this place and these people, but we are lucky, Myrcella – you are my ward, and as my ward you shall choose what your life shall be.”

Myrcella purses her lips. “But I am still a bastard.”

“And I am still a dwarf,” Tyrion drawls. “It does not matter for Lannister’s.”

“But … I’m not a Lannister,” Myrcella says. “I’m a-“

“-a Lannister twice over,” Sansa cuts her off, watching as Myrcella shifts rather uncomfortably. “Do not fret about your name, Myrcella – you shall always be safe as my lady.”

 

* * *

 

 

Myrcella is a quiet, but rather competent lady in waiting.

Sansa had been pleasantly surprised to find the once Princess easily completing tasks meant for women of lesser standing, and glad that the girl she had campaigned to be returned to the Capital was not going to make this anymore harder than what it is.

Yet it does not stop the court from leering, as they always had done. They whisper, and point, and some laugh, but when laughter is heard Sansa becomes the wolf they all think her to be. Despite all the laughter, and the way the courtiers court cruelty, Myrcella does nothing to acknowledge such disrespect. She simply juts her chin out, straightens her spine, and walks behind Sansa as any other lady of the Princess.

It is on her fifth day in Sansa’s household that Myrcella begins to waver.  

It is bickering that wakes Sansa from her sleep, grogginess and the chill she had caught from being in the snow clouding her thoughts before their voices pierce her ears. 

“It is not difficult, Lady  _ Waters _ ,” Lady Karn sneers. “You simply  _ fold  _ the Princess’ small clothes so that they are easily reached when she is dressed in the morning. It is not a difficult concept, but it seems hard for you to even  _ grasp _ .”

“I’m sorry,” Myrcella stutters. “I simply thought-“

“You thought wrong,” Lady Karn snaps. “Now, the Princess has taken unwell so you must be quiet and if I hear any more complaints from you, gods he-“

“Lady Karn,” Sansa pulls back the curtains of her bedchamber, and steps into her solar. Her nightgown feels clammy over her skin, and her stomach churns in protest as she steps forward. She has pulled a robe on to protect her modesty, but for all her body is tired and she has caught a chill, she can still feel the rage.

“My Lady,” Lady Karn says, dipping into a low curtsy. “We did not think you were awake. May we-“

“I was not awake,” Sansa snaps, weak as she steps forward. “Until I had to endure the sound of your bickering. What is the meaning of this?”

Lady Karn puffs her chest, and simply says, “Lady Waters did not know how to do her duty, my lady. I was educating her-“

“In a tone meant to belittle her intelligence?” Sansa asks, cocking a brow.

Lady Karn’s confidence wavers, and she inhales deeply. “I’m sorry, my lady, if I have caused offence.”

“You should not be apologising to me,” Sansa snaps, pushing her sweat filled hair from her forehead. “It is Lady Myrcella that you have offended.”

Lady Karn is slow in her apology, but she does turn to Myrcella and offers a curt one. Sansa nods, too tired to berate the lady further before she dismisses her.

“Myrcella,” Sansa says, motioning to the girl to follow her. “Close the curtains after you.”

Myrcella does as she is asked, and Sansa sighs as she goes to fill her cup, sighing as the headache once again reignites.

“Are you well, my lady?” Myrcella asks, her eyebrows pinching together.

“It is Sansa,” Sansa says, correcting Myrcella for what seems like the hundredth time. “And I shall be soon – I have caught a chill.”

Myrcella bites her lip. “Can I do anything?”

“No, no,” Sansa says simply, climbing back into bed and closing her eyes. “I brought you in here so that you may have a break from them.”

“A break?” Myrcella asks. “But I am your lady's maid.”

“In name only,” Sansa says, settling into her bed as she yawns. “You may sit in here and read if you wish, or embroider while I sleep. It is best if they see that I favour you – it will stop some of the … cruelty.”

Myrcella looks to the floor. “I did not think you realised.”

Sansa opens her eyes, and catches Myrcella's gaze. “I know this court, Myrcella. It is unkind, and cruel, and once, a long time ago, they did the same to me as they are doing to you.”

“When?” Myrcella gapes, confused.

Sansa chuckles. “After my father was executed. Surely you remember what your … what Joffrey did to me and how the court treated me.”

Myrcella sighs. “Mother always kept us away from those sorts of things, in truth.”

“Of course she did,” Sansa says, wiping away at the sweat that had accumulated on her forehead. “But I know what it is like, Myrcella, and in time it shall go. They just need to see you have my favour.”

Myrcella sighs, before she whispers, “I hate it. I hate it here.”

Sansa opens her eyes, and sits up, feeling pity swell in her chest as she nods and says, “Me too.”

 

* * *

 

“We can’t ignore it any longer.”

Sansa stands in a warzone disguised as a feast; an alien amongst courtiers. It is a grandeur affair, with large sculptures of golden dragons and silver flames. Sansa had gaped at the extravagance – at the bounty of food that sat in mounds on each table, and the wine that flowed without refrain. It is to celebrate the newest trade deal with the Reach, meaning that Sansa could not refuse to attend as she so wished to do.

The feast has been discussed for weeks now; having been planned meticulously to welcome to the Tyrells who have travelled from the Reach. In truth, it had been over a moon to prepare for such elaborate extravagance – something that King's Landing could not exactly afford in the perils of Winter.

The Tyrells sit on the dais with great smiles on their faces, as if this show of elaborate farce is something they appreciate.  _ Of course, it is, _ Sansa thinks,  _ Margaery married a Prince in a gown of gold thread and with a crown bigger than the Queens in her hair. _

Sansa can recall how she had laughed at the sight at first, before her husband had snapped at the idiocracy of it all. Joffrey had hated her, she was sure, but for all his hatred of who she was, her fine features and long auburn hair meant she was the finest prize in the Kingdom; another head to be mounted on the wall.

Sansa had always known, that for all Joffrey would scar her body and tear her flesh, her face would always be safe from his touch. For all that Joffrey Baratheon –  _ Waters _ – loved the tears, his greatest tragedy would have been to lose the brightest gem of Westeros.  _ As soon as I bled I became a fine thing for them all to look at; a china doll for him to play with, and destroy. _

Margaery Tyrell is a china doll of her own.  __

Fine, and beautiful, as all dolls should be, she sits with a rod in her spine and with beautiful jewels dripping from her body. She has been placed beside Jon, and as soon as Sansa had been escorted in, she had not been able to hold back the laugh that had escaped her.  _ So Lord Connington has had his way then,  _ she thinks as she had watched Margaery Tyrell curtsy low to her.

Sansa does not hate Margaery, for she cannot hate a puppet. Margaery is a parrot, repeating the words of her family, with a pretty little smile and a virginal beauty. Sansa cannot hate her for doing as she is told. Sansa supposes, once, that she may have hated Margaery – truly, viciously hated her – but Sansa can no longer bring herself to hate a woman for doing a man’s bidding.

Margaery smiles largely for Jon, Sansa notes, but she watches as her husband, awkward and sombre, takes the smiles with a slight confusion. When they had sat down, he had simply turned to Sansa and whispered, “ _ Do you wish to trade places _ ?”

“ _ No, my Lord husband _ ,” Sansa had whispered back, a grin on her lips. It is slow, their relationship; every day is  “ _ She is all yours _ .”

But soon enough after the last meal is served, Lady Margaery is asked to dance and Prince Oberyn fills the seat she has left behind. Sansa is content to watch, but she knows that to deny a dance to a man of wealth or influence will not be appreciated; so she does as she always has, and does the bidding of her House with pretty smiles and kind words.

Sansa’s dress of blue swims at her feet as she walks to the dais after a long dance with a man from the Reach, who had held her hands so tightly that she thinks she may wake with bruising. The gown is so fine that Sansa is reminded of who she once was – a girl that loved fine silks and southron fashions. It had been made weeks ago at the Queen's command, and so when Sansa had seen the gown, with fine silver gems sewn in with silver thread, she could not help but gawk. Even Myrcella had fancied the gown, and had relished in receiving a gown of a red and black to wear. 

“ _ All the Princess’ ladies must wear similar gowns that represent the Targaryen House,”  _ Lady Tarly had explained to Myrcella, while Sansa had been reading to Joanna.

“ _ So … it is like a uniform?”  _ Myrcella had asked.

Sansa had answered. “ _ No, Myrcella – it is like armour. You are my lady, and so the court knows you to be of strong and great conviction despite all their japes.” _

Myrcella had smiled to herself, before she had looked to Sansa in excitement. “ _ I haven’t been to a ball in so long.” _

_ “I fear even the largest ball will not rival the smallest of Dornish dinners,”  _ Sansa had laughed, before assuring Myrcella, “ _ And I will try to get you a moment with Prince Oberyn. Mayhaps then he can give you some news of your friends.” _

Jon is speaking to Oberyn is hushed tones, and as she sits, she catches the urgency to their words.

“The Lord Commander has sent many ravens,” Prince Oberyn says, before his eyes flicker to Sansa as she sits. “My Princess.”

“Prince Oberyn,” Sansa says, reaching for her wine before she devours it. Her cheeks are so flushed she thinks she may combust with the heat she feels come over her, hoping that the wine will cool her slightly.

“Are you okay?” She hears Jon asks, and Sansa nods, his voice piercing through the fog that had consumed her.

“Yes, fine,” Sansa says, before she puts the wine down and beckons a cup bearer forward. Sansa watches as her wine skin is filled, and she offers her smile as thanks to the cup bearer, before she returns to the conversation. “What are you discussing?”

If Prince Oberyn was like the other members of the small council, he would have diverted her attention or told her outright that women had no use in knowing issues beyond their reasoning. But Oberyn does not turn her away, or lie – he tells her the truth. “The Wall is on the verge of collapse, my Lady.”

“Gods be good,” Sansa whispers, shock consuming her as she looks to Jon. “Surely this can’t be?”

The thought of what Jon had told her on the night of their wedding comes to mind again, and she shakes her head.  _ The dead have come to claim Westeros,  _ she thinks, before a voice whispers,  _ the dead claimed these lands long ago. _

“Lord Commander Tollett is a friend,” Jon says, sighing. “He would not lie about such things.”

“What … what does it mean?” Sansa asks, before she casts her gaze over the hall. “For everything?”

“We shall go to War,” Jon says simply, casting her a look. “These creatures die from fire, and we have beasts that breathe it.”

“Three dragons,” Sansa whispers, her hand coming to clench Jon’s forearm, “and thousands of dead.”

“Dead, and vengeful,” Prince Oberyn says.

Sansa meets his gaze. “When are the dead not vengeful, Prince Oberyn? Every ghost has been wronged, after all.”

“Yes.” Oberyn’s eyes shine with unspoken words. “Yes, they have been.”

Sansa leans forward. “When will you leave?”

“Dany says we must wait another moon.”

“Another moon?” Sansa asks, her eyes widening. “Can you truly wait, Jon? If the Wall collapses … it … it means the North is gone.”

Jon meets her gaze, and shakes his head. “It shall not come to that.”

“But if it does?” Sansa asks, her body coiling with the worries for her people; people she has not known in years, and yet feels pulled to. “Jon, these are our people.”

Jon’s face flickers with understanding. “I know.”

“And what of the Bolton’s?” Sansa asks, thousands of questions consuming her. “How shall you fight at the War when the Bolton’s claim the North as their own.”

“We shall deal with it,” Jon assures her.

Oberyn nods. “I understand, my lady, that the Bolton’s must be removed-“

“Executed,” Sansa snaps, unable to refrain. “Roose Bolton stabbed my brother in the heart and I shall repay the favour.”

A knowing shines in Oberyn eyes, and Sansa thinks, for a moment, that Oberyn and herself are not so different.  _ Both children of families torn apart. _

“We shall root them from our Keep,” Jon says simply, placing his hand over Sansa’s before he smiles tightly – sad in his disposition. “But it must wait.”

Sansa nods, feeling fear come over her as the heat once again washes over her skin. She thinks of her daughter, before her thoughts begin to crawl towards her siblings.  _ Arya, Rickon, and Bran.  _ What if they are North? What if they are near Winterfell, hoping that there is a Stark within the walls?

Sansa’s hand clench at her skirts, and she feels the heat consume her once more. Breathing tightly against her tight corset, her mind conjures image after image. Images of the men and women she had grown with, being feasted on by creates of the night – the dead haunting the North like her father haunts her. She imagines her siblings, frightened and freezing, fighting off men with faces they recognise but with the Stranger commanding them.

Sansa’s corset feels too tight, the thick tooth of her bodice constricting against her ribs and pushing the air from her lungs. Every breath she takes seems to tighten the strings of her corset, and suddenly she feels herself dissolving into small gasping coughs. 

“Sansa?” Jon asks, his eyes widening in concern. “Sansa, what is it?”

Sansa stands, her hands digging into the table as she says, “I fear I must … retire early.”

She finds the strength, somewhere within her, as she begins to walk from the hall. Half of her wishes to expel the contents of her stomach, while the other half wishes to plunge herself into the ocean.  _ Maybe they shall call me Ashara Dayne.  _ Sansa can hear someone call her name, but she is blind to the feast that she knows she should not be leaving – her sickness all consuming.

“Sansa, what’s wrong?” Sansa hears as she enters the hall, her husband putting his hand on her arm. _ Jon,  _ her thoughts cry, his name a symphony she sings. She blinks through blurred vision, before she realises how cold his hand is. Jon stares at her with so much concern that for a moment she thinks he may combust – his face the canvas of his worries that seem a plenty. “Gods, Sansa, you’re  _ burning _ .”  

_ I am burning,  _ Sansa thinks, her lips trying to move to say,  _ you make me burn. _

“I-“ Sansa begins to say, before she feels the heat truly consume her – like a fire burning within that is turning her into ash.  _ From snow to ash,  _ she thinks, _ I am of stone; of marble; of glass. My skin is scarred but sacred; my smile few yet indulgent. I have gone from ice to snow to ash. _

Sansa blinks through the fog to see Jon staring at her, his mouth moving and yet no words meeting her ears. Sansa can see Myrcella round the corner before she begins to stumble as her legs give out beneath her.

_ I am a storm, and he is the stone that I cling to,  _ she thinks, her last thought before darkness consumes her and she is lost to her unconsciousness. 


	17. The Funnel

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok, I don't like this chapter but it'll probably be the only chapter you guys get over the next few days. 
> 
> Thank you for all your kudos and comments as always - I will reply to some of them when I have time tomorrow! 
> 
> Music Recommendations: Cavalier by James Vincent McMorrow A+++ song for this chapter.

Sansa wakes to darkness.

Her room is consumed by it, actually. The heavy curtains drawn, and the fire in the hearth gone. Sansa is not used to such darkness – not even in the midst of night. Her fire is always tended to by a handmaiden, and her curtains are never drawn as they are now. She likes to the sight of the moon too much to ignore it.

Sansa blinks, her eyes adjusting to the black abyss that surrounds her, before she begins to remember.  _ I fell,  _ she thinks, her hand coming to her forehead as embarrassment floods her,  _ I fell in front of the entire  _ **_court_ ** _. _

Her failings at finding a proper time to fall consume her thoughts for a moment, before she stretches. While the sickness of her belly had lessened, she still burns. She is like a flame to wildfire; a catching spark in the wind.  _ My body is a forest on fire and I can do nothing but burn. _

Her legs are rods of steel as she stretches, heavy as she places them on the cold wood of the floor. No ladies sleep in the palettes beside her bed, which she is thankful for. Loneliness is forbidden when a crown rests on your head, and she  _ hates  _ it.

She is stiff at first, but once she begins to walk she feels better. But she is swimming in a pit of flames and her skin licks it up like, relishing in the feel of her entire body succumbing to the fire from within. Going to the doors to her balcony, Sansa pulls back the heavy curtains and slips out the doors, welcoming the freezing air against her thin shift.

And outside … outside is  _ beautiful. _

It is dawn, just before the sun truly peaks from behind the horizon. She can taste the sky then, and all it’s colours; a river above of purples and reds and oranges. She can taste the winter, menacing in its cold embrace.  _ But I am a wolf made of winter snow,  _ she thinks,  _ this is my winter.  _ She can taste the salt of the sea, wondrous as the waves crash against the cliff below.

Winter is wondrous in it’s cold, and Sansa knows she would welcome it over a summer’s heat. Winter means the North, Winter means home, Winter means safety. The spring is a stranger to her; winter is a lover.

Sansa knows she should be cold; freezing, actually. The ground of her balcony is wet, and her toes curl as they touch the truly chilling water but she cares not. Any relief from the burning beneath her skin is welcomed.

As she looks at the waves below, Sansa thinks of her.

Ashara Dayne.

The name of a ghost she had never met had haunted her for years; the sin of her act a song Sansa was always too scared to sing. And yet Sansa would think of her, and how her body would have hit the water. Sansa can recall wondering if Ashara had died when she first fell, or if she had been left to drown. Sansa can recall how often she had pondered that very thought; wondering if death was worth being painful, or if living was more pain that broken bones and drowning ever could be.

She imagines her heart to be coloured black; an organ beat by the grief of her past. _Thud, thud, thud,_ it sings, a tune it has whistled since she was a babe in her mother’s belly. She imagines her heart to beat steadily, a constant that will one day decide _enough._ One day, she imagines, her heart will simply fall peril to the grief it has endured, dying as it should have years before. She wonders if that day should be soon, for she does not want it to be.

For the first time in years she does not wish to die.

Sansa does not wish to drown, or throw herself from a cliffs edge. Sansa does not want her husband's sword to end her as she had always imagined; always  _ dreamed.  _ Her dreams of death were the makings of her grief, the ugliest part of her. Her grief wished to jump from the cliff. Her grief wished to take a dagger to her throat. Her grief wished for an end.

Her grief had wished for many things.

And Sansa would have been content. Not happy, for how could she ever relish in her own death? She had never wanted to die, but the pain of her life had become more than the pain of her death. Sansa would have welcomed the Stranger with a warm embrace, and kind words, if she had only had the courage to throw herself from the cliff she so often stood.

But she did not have the courage of Ashara Dayne.

She never will.

Her spine is of steel, her skin is of marble, and her lungs are a light with winter air, but Sansa Stark will never be able to do as Ashara Dayne had done. She had thought of it, of course had thought of it, but it was only thoughts after Joanna was born.

She could not leave Joanna to be raised by a pride of lions, who would have toyed with her before devouring her. She could not allow her daughter, her beautiful babe, to ever be as alone as she once was.

Sansa sighs, her thoughts of Ashara Dayne and Joanna melting away as she cracks her neck – wanting more chill on her skin to quench the fire that burns away at her. It is beginning to work, when she hears her name.

“Sansa.”

Sansa turns at the sound of her name. Jon stands in the doorway, in a loosened tunic and wrinkled pants. He seems tired; his eyes of stone shadowed by bruising beneath them.

Sansa smiles. “Jon.”

“You’re … you’re up?” Jon asks, his eyebrows furrowed in confusion. He steps forward, his steps large as he comes closer to her, and yet he seems like a bull walking towards a statue of glass. His concern pours off him like the spray from the waves below, and it is then Sansa remembers that she  _ had  _ fainted. “How are you feeling?”

“Yes,” Sansa says, nodding as she pushes her hair behind her ears. “Yes, I’m feeling fine. A little hot, but well.”

Jon listens, his breath fracturing in front of him in a bloom of condensation, before he stills. Sana watches him as his face slacks, and all the worries that has built tension in his face melts away. He is quick, as he strides forward and pulls her to him, his lips like warmer than any fire she could ever feel.

Her spine is bent around his hand as he pulls her to him, and as his tongue enters her mouth she realises that no coldness could be as wondrous as  _ this.  _ Her hands quickly find his neck, pulling at the hair that resides there.  _ Winter is beautiful, like he is,  _ she thinks. She imagines her heart now, coloured red and bursting with the flush of her exhilaration. She imagines her lungs, inhaling and exhaling the breath of her husband with a starving need.

He makes her feel like she has already died; free in her pain free existence. In his kiss, she sees the years to come. In his kiss, she sees the North, and spring, and every laugh she is to ever have. In his kiss, she has found a comfort she never would have anticipated. But mayhaps it was always meant to be this – them two matched.

For when she thinks of love, she thinks of his smile and kiss. For when she thinks of home, she thinks of his hands. She finds herself describing the man that kisses her when she thinks of the Prince of her childhood dreams; his hands having carved a strange affection that Sansa does not know how to digest.

The wind whips at their embrace, their hair being lifted by the strengths of its’ gusts as Jon pulls her closer. She does not feel the cold then; no, she is warm against him. The sight is one of scandal though – the Princess naked beneath her shift and her Prince ravaging her lips like a man hungry.

He breaks away from her, his grey eyes a map of pain and confusion and fire.

Her lips are swollen when she asks, “What-“

“You scared me,” Jon whispers, his hand coming to cup her cheek. “Gods, you were  _ so  _ sick.”

“I’m fine,” Sansa murmurs, coming to brush his hair from his forehead. There is an intimacy between them, a spark Sansa has not felt before, that rests in the air like the wind that surrounds them. Sansa wonders if she should be doing this – if she should be this close, if he should want her this close, but then decides she doesn’t truly care much anymore. “I promise, I’m well.”

Jon laughs, his laughter coming out raspy. “I know, I can see.”

Sansa grins, feeling silly at her words before she looks down to his body and finds his wrinkled and dishevelled appearance. “Did you come straight from bed?”

“I have been with you all night,” Jon murmurs, his gaze following hers. “I went to the garderobe for I didn’t want to wake you.”

Something swells in Sansa’s chest, and she finds herself smiling. “Why would you stay?”

“I had to,” Jon says, shrugging as if it were nothing. “You were sick, and I …”

“Worried too much,” Sansa says simply, before she clears her throat and steps away from his embrace – going to lean against the railing. “Truly, it was probably from the chill I got last week. I should blame you, you know, for making Joanna and I go riding.”

“I did not  _ make  _ you.” Jon laughs. “And you did not even ride.”

“I will ride once we go North,” Sansa says simply, pulling her long hair over her shoulders to cover her sheer chest. “I was never allowed a horse here.”

Jon’s expression softness, before it hardens into a resolute determination. “I shall get you a horse.”

“Okay,” Sansa says, rolling her eyes.

“I will,” Jon insists. “A beautiful white horse like the one you had when you were little.”

Sansa meets his gaze, surprised. “You remember my horse?”

Jon’s eyes burn into hers as he admits, “I’ve tried to remember everything about you since we married.”

Sansa shifts, uncomfortable beneath his intense gaze before she looks to the floor. Jon is a puzzle, an enigma wrapped in the skin of a man she once knew, with eyes of the man she has loved the most. Sometimes, she wants to succumb to the warmth she feels whenever she is around him, but other times the warmth is so foreign to her that she forbids herself from even thinking about it.

Silence brews between them, but it is not uncomfortable. The waves of the sea below make a great score for their silence, and Sansa relishes in her companied loneliness.  _ I once thought my husband would lavish me with sonnets and songs of his love,  _ she thinks,  _ but I am content for silence to our song. _

“Sansa,” Jon says, breaking the song of silence she was enjoying. “We had to have the Maester examine you.”

Sansa looks up, surprised. “What?”

“We thought you were poisoned,” Jon admits, his voice becoming thick. “Sansa, the Maester … he thinks you are with child.”

His words seem to be spoken in a foreign language, for as they leave his mouth Sansa cannot understand.  _ I can’t be with child,  _ she thinks,  _ I have already bled.  _ But then her mind begins to do the calculations, as it had done when she was pregnant with Joanna.  _ We consummated our marriage and then I bled. We consummated our marriage and then I bled. _

_ This can’t be. _

It is a voice in the deepest depths of her mind that whispers,  _ the day of Jon Conningtons insults. _

She thinks back, counting the sennights as she also tries to remember when she was supposed to bleed. She had not asked for her rags already for she hadn’t needed them, but Sansa had not even been reminded by her ladies of her monthly bleeding. When she had been pregnant with Joanna, it was …  _ it was Shae that told me,  _ she remembers, her eyes closing in realisation.

Sansa feels as if the coldness of the water below has been dumped on her – an assault on her mind and her body.  _ Would it be so awful,  _ she thinks,  _ if I was with child?  _ Sansa thinks of the child she has been dreaming of for weeks now – a grey eyed, Tully haired  **Stark** born in Winterfell.

A babe of both Jon and Sansa; an  _ heir.  _ It is something that strikes her so roughly that she wonders if this could be true. Joffrey had taken her for months before she had conceived a child, and yet with Jon it has taken two attempts? It seems ridiculous, and incomprehensible, and yet she cannot help the pure, unadulterated happiness that burst in her chest.

She thinks of Joanna, her beautiful Stark babe that resembles Arya so much that it hurts. Her child has been the only family she has had for four years, and now she would have another.  _ I have two actually,  _ she thinks.

Sansa can recall a time she had spoken out of turn while she had been swelling with Joanna. He had snatched her hand, and dug his ring into her palm before he had pulled her to him. His lips had been cold against her ear as he had sneered,  _ You are not a Stark any more, my love. The Starks are dead, just like your weak brother. _

But the Starks were not dead. The Starks would never die, not now, not with  **two** heirs. But then the voice whispers again,  _ the Starks had five heirs and only one survives. Numbers do not assure survival. _

And yet she cannot focus on that so much … not with thoughts of a babe on her mind. A new child, a sibling for Joanna, a **Stark.** _They whispered that I was a wolf born of the river and a southron grown North girl, but I am not. I am the Stark that will continue my family name._

“Sansa?” Jon asks, tearing her from her thoughts. He looks tortured, like his skin is being pulled from each limb and displayed in front of his eyes. Torment does not do well on Jon Snow's face – it only makes him seem more  _ tragic.  _ And yet this is not a sad moment. Sansa has endured sadness, and grief, and more pain than she could seemingly take.  “Sansa, what are you thinking?”

Sansa looks up, and looks to her husband.  _ This will be his first child,  _ Sansa thinks, her hand coming to her flat belly as she wonders what sort of father he shall be. But she needn’t wonder – Sansa knows what sort of father Jon would be, for she has seen it already.  _ He shall be everything a father should be,  _ Sansa thinks, before her gut drops,  _ he shall be like my father. _

Sansa can see it so clearly then – the future that is promised. Winterfell, in all it’s glory, with babes filling its rooms.  _ Joanna shall have Arya’s room,  _ Sansa decides,  _ for if I want Joanna to be like anyone it is Arya.  _ And then this this babe can have the room closest to Sansa’s,  _ mayhaps Rickons old chambers. _

To think of Winterfell, and home was to think of pain, but now it was not as painful as it once was. Winterfell meant happiness; it meant something more than suffering and grief. Winterfell meant a life outside the court, where she is nothing but Sansa – where she is nothing but a  **Stark.**

_ And then if we find Arya, we can live together,  _ Sansa thinks, her joy almost too much to bear as she begins to smile.

_ We can be happy. _

_ I can be happy. _

“Sansa?”

Sansa meets Jon’s eyes, and grins, before she runs to him, launching herself into his arms. Jon catches her, as she knew he would; her laughter occupying the silence that once fell.

“Gods, gods,” Sansa whispers into Jon’s ear, squeezing his neck as she near  _ squeals.  _ “Jon, we are going to have a  _ babe _ !”

“You’re happy?” Jon asks, astonished.

Sansa pulls back, wondering if a smile has ever felt so comfortable. “I am  _ so  _ happy.”

Jon beams, before he restrains himself. “But the Maester did not do a thorough examination, Sansa, so we must not get our hopes up-“

“But he thinks I am with child?” Sansa ask, laughing as he nods. The joy is almost  _ painful  _ but Jon’s smile is too sweet and she is to delirious to even think that this feeling could be false. “This is amazing.”

“I thought you’d be …” Jon shakes his head, almost breathless as he smiles. “I didn’t think you would be this happy.”

Sansa meets his eyes, Tully blue to Stark grey, before she pushes the stray curl from his face again. He has a beautiful face, and for all the reservations that surround their complication union, she knows she can admit that. And despite the guilt she knows usually comes with her stirrings for Jon Snow, it matters not in this moment. Nothing matters now, not with winter surrounding them and their babe in her belly.

He has many scars embedded into his skin; one above his eye, mutilating his eyebrow. The others are scattered, the largest being on his neck to collarbone. She hadn’t seen it when she had first met Jon again – it was when she was bare and beneath him did she truly see it for it had faded.

She had asked him, one day when she was brave enough about it.

“ _ This scar?”  _ He had asked, tracing the scar on his neck that she had been staring at.

Sansa had nodded.

Jon had chuckled. “ _ Robb stole your one of your fathers training swords, and swung it at me. We were playing knights, and it nicked me. Father was furious – he walloped Robb so much I thought he was never going to walk again.” _

_ “I don’t remember any of this,”  _ Sansa had admitted.

Jon had shrugged. “ _ I don’t expect you too – a bastard boy getting hurt isn’t much of a matter at Winterfell.” _

Sansa had been quiet, before she had said, “ _ It should have been.” _

Jon had looked at her in a way that was different to all the times he had looked at her, and after that, things between them had begun to change. They had begun to at least try to understand each other, although now Sansa thinks Jon mayhaps was trying much harder.

“This child,” Sansa whispers, “our child means so much more than just a babe. It means freedom, and the North, and a family, for us. You, and Joanna, and this child – we can be a family.” Jon listens to her, his eyes softening as she continues. “I didn’t want to wed you, I’ll admit, but I think I know now that  _ this,  _ our marriage, it means safety, Jon. It means we have a future without this court.”

Jon swallows, his hand coming to her waist as he pulled her closer. “And a friendship. I want to have a friendship, Sansa – I do not want to raise a child as strangers.”

Sansa grins. “Then friends we shall be.”

“Truly?” Jon asks, shock consuming his features.

Sansa narrows her eyes playfully, on a high from the news. “You act like we haven’t been cordial these past weeks. I think we’ve been getting on quite well.”

Jon looks at her lips when he echo’s, “Quite.”

His voice crawls over her skin like the fire his dragon breathes. Sansa’s hands come to his cheek, feeling the ridges and the deep setted scars.  _ You have lived a life full of misery,  _ she thinks, her eyes soaking in the sight of his small, humbled smile. It is then she is consumed by the thought of who Jon truly is – the Prince who was promised, the son of Rhaegar and Lyanna,  _ ice and fire. _

_ What it must have been like for Papa,  _ she thinks as she stares at his face,  _ to gain a son and lose a sister in the same breath. _

“This will change things,” Sansa admits, her voice low. “A lot of things.”

“We have months to prepare,” Jon says, and Sansa shifts in his arms before she pulls back, unwrapping herself from his body.

She feels cold as she steps back, but she knows she must. “Months turn to days very quickly, Jon. Especially when a babe is concerned.”

“I’m so excited,” Jon bursts, his smile so wide that Sansa can see his gum. It is contagious, but Sansa does not mind this contagion. In fact, she relishes in it.  _ I would sacrifice the sun to see him smile like that.  _ “I’m going to be father, Sansa!”

“Yes!” Sansa laughs, before she forces herself to sober. “But … but Jon we should talk about what this means. Where we will be.”

Jon sobers, and nods. It is a bitter laugh that follows, before he says, “For a moment, I forgot we were in a war.”

“I did too,” Sansa says, before she shivers against the cold. The warmth of Jon had provided her with respite from both the burning, and the cold.

“Come,” Jon says, “let’s go inside. I’ll call for the Maester.”

 

* * *

 

The Maester examines her more thoroughly than in her unconscious state, before he confirms.

“I recommend enjoying a balanced diet, and moderate exercise,” The Maester says, before his eyes go to where Jon stands. “And mayhaps if you include a healthy dosage of asparagus into your diet, the babe shall be a boy.”

Sansa opens her mouth to speak before Jon beats her to it. “It matters not if it’s a boy or a girl, Grand Maester Arkes.”

Grand Maester Arkes laughs, and nods. “Of course, my Prince. But we must pray for a healthy heir-“

“Who can be born either a boy or a girl,” Jon says simply, before he nods. “Is there anything else we can do? To ensure the babe is healthy?”

“Well … it is  _ very  _ early,” Grand Maester Arkes says. “I would advise not publically announcing until you are swelling. It can lead to disappointment, if one loses the child.”

Sansa sobers at the mention of losing a child, watching as Jon leads the Maester out.  _ I am pregnant,  _ she thinks, before Sansa chokes on what she has done by becoming pregnant. The Grand Maesters words echo in her mind on what it would mean to lose a child, but Sansa is healthy and young still. She knows that she will not lose this child; not like that.

But it is his words that force her to realise what she has been blinded to. Her happiness has blinded her, but when she thinks of this babe that grows in her belly she can only think of a child that will be taken from her arms and forced into a life not of their choice.  _ Heir,  _ she thinks,  _ heir they shall be to a Kingdom unwanted. _

Jon finds Sansa weeping in her bed, her chest heaving in violent sobs. “What’s wrong?”

“I don’t know,” Sansa says, her knees coming to her chest before a voice whispers,  _ do not lie to him. He is your friend.  _ Sansa looks up, tears in her eyes as she whispers, “He shall not be ours, shall he?”

“Who?” Jon asks, confused.

“The babe.” A sob tears from her lips before she whispers, “When will the Queen rip him from our arms, Jon? Will it be while he is still on my breast? Or mayhaps she shall let us love him and then take him.”

“Sansa,” Jon whispers, his face softening into a  pity she does not want. But beneath the sea of pity that stains his face like a plague is a fear too mighty to ignore. “It … it is alright. This babe shall be ours, and we shall have many more-“

“But when will she take him?” Sansa asks, wiping away at her tears. “When will she … when will our happiness run out?”

Jon’s expression is hard as he says, “Why should our happiness run out? Don’t you think we deserve some joy in our lives?”

“I think happiness is a funnel,” Sansa whispers, the fear of future pain consuming her.  _ I cannot lose a child. I cannot lose my child.  _ “It runs out.”

“Not ours,” Jon says, climbing onto the bed gently and wrapping her in his arms. “I shall protect it. I shall make sure it does not run out.”

“You can’t do that.”

Jon scoffs, his bear grazing her cheek as he kisses her forehead. “I have fought the dead – I can fight my Aunt for our child.”

Sansa turns to look at him, her fingers grasping at his tunic as she says, “I cannot lose a child, Jon. I don’t think I’ll survive losing a child.”

Jon stares at her, his face pulling back in surprise as he whispers, “You have survived worse.”

“But not that,” Sansa says, and it hangs in the air – a vow that she makes. For she knows that for all the pain she has endured, for all that her skin has split and that her legs have been torn open, to have a babe ripped from her arms would be to push her from the cliff she has toed. “Can we not just run away?”

Jon brushes a auburn strand from her face, before he grabs her hand in his and presses a kiss to her palm. “If she forces us, we shall run away, okay? We shall run to beyond the Wall, and join the wildlings-“

“I will not raise my children with  _ wildlings _ ,” Sansa says through her tears.

Jon laughs. “No, that is Arya. So we shall go East, then. Be simply Jon, and Sansa.”

“I can’t lose a child, Jon-“

“And you won’t,” Jon murmurs, his voice grave as he vows it to her. “I cannot lose a child either, Sansa. I shall not allow it.”

Sansa nods, feeling the panic that had consumed her momentarily dampen as she leans into Jon’s chest. Silence hangs between them for a moment as Sansa brushes the tears from her cheeks, and tastes salt on her lips, before she whispers, “I’m sorry – I don’t know why I … why I acted like that.”

“Don’t apologise,” Jon whispers, wrapping his arms around her. She feels like a doll compared to him; small and fragile.  _ But I am not fragile. I’m not a doll.  _ “You’re scared, and so am I. But it’ll be fine, Sansa – I’ll fight this war, and I shall win it, for you and our family.”

Sansa breathes deeply, tightening her hold on his arm before she laughs, breathless. “I feel like I am always crying or laughing or screaming when I am around you.”

“Aye,” Jon says with a nod, his lip twitching. “I suppose it … keeps me on my toes.”

Sansa glances back at him, and sees his hidden smile. “Your attempt at making me feel better is weak.”

Jon’s eyebrows twitch together, and an awkwardness inhabits his face as he says, “I don’t know if you have noticed, Sansa, but … I’m not very good with my words.”

Their laughter fills the room, and for a moment, they can forget their pain and focus on nothing but the promise of the future. 


	18. Let Him Live

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh who's back? Its ME! Your friendly neighbourhood fanfic writer! Hope all has been well. Some updates for you all: 
> 
> I've been sick. It's not been nice. 
> 
> Updated Because She Promised. 
> 
> Got some inspo for a one shot I really, really want to write: It would include Arya Stark, and Lady Stoneheart. Would anyone read? 
> 
> As always, I am a slut for comments and kudos. But in all seriousness, please let me emphasise that I lose motivation very quickly (if you cannot tell from the amount of time it took me to update Because She Promised) and that is usually down to comments. I love reading them, and if I know that people are reading and are engaging I'm more likely to update. I know I'm bribing you into commenting, but I really want to finish this story and now have a year in between chapters, so I think commenting is really gonna help with that! So tell me what you think! I'd appreciate it!

Sansa feels like a ghost looking in when Jon tells the Queen of their news.

The Queen smiles, of course, and offers her congratulations, but it is something strange – an oddness that Sansa cannot fully digest. For the Queen does not simply offer congratulation – she leaps from her chair and embraces Sansa, with such a tightness that Sansa wonders if she is hallucinating.

And yet even her hallucinations would not be this adventurous, for her mind could never conjure such a lightness within Daenerys Targaryen that Sansa was seeing before her. Her smile speaks of spring, and her eyes, bright with the violet of her forefathers, are dancing with swirls of elation, like ribbons floating in spring air.

“It is wonderful!” Daenerys exclaims, her hands coming to grip Sansa’s as she motions to the plush seats. “Come, sit, sit, we must talk about the babe!”

The Queen is a stranger, then; strange in her happiness, and joy for something that does not belong to her. _It will belong to her,_ Sansa thinks as they leave, _this babe will always belong to her._ This babe will carry the Queen’s name, and will wear the crown after her – this babe, despite its blood, will always belong to Daenerys Targaryen and the iron throne.

Sansa can feel the anxiousness consuming her as her thoughts begin to dive into an abyss of her fears, but she need only remember Jon’s words and she finds a calm in a storm of melancholy thoughts. _The babe shall be ours,_ Jon had said, _I shall protect it._

And for all the thoughts of knights who had been dishonourable, and men who gathered strength from their wives’ blood, Sansa could find trust in Jon’s words.

“She is happy,” Jon says, as they walk.

Sansa nods.

Jon sighs. “She’s relieved, I think.”

“Relieved?” Sansa asks, confused.

Jon’s hand find his chin, itching at his beard. _It’s a habit,_ Sansa thinks, having seen him do it so many times now. “We’ll be leaving soon, and … and this war is unlike any other we have fought.”

“She was … joyous,” Sansa murmurs, think back to how she had reacted.

“There are three Targaryen’s left,” Jon says with a shrug. “Dany … Dany wants our House to continue.”

“But she has Aegon,” Sansa says teasingly.

Jon casts her a look. “Mayhaps.”

“Mayhaps?” Sansa asks as Jon leads her into his solar. “Does that mean you have doubts?”

“I do not doubt anything,” Jon says with a shrug, before he meets her eyes – a knowing look consuming his eyes of stone. “Not yet, at least.”

Sansa chuckles. “Then when will you?”

“When the war is won,” Jon murmurs, offering her some wine as she sits before his desk. “Unitl then, you and Tyrion must try to remain civil to them.”

“Tyrion is civil,” Sansa says, confused.

Jon laughs. “Tyrion is about as subtle as a pointed sword. And with us leaving, it is best not to anger them for the moment – at least not while I am away from court, or while Dany is away from court.”

Sansa laughs. ‘Do you truly think Dany would protect me?”

“Of course,” Jon says, meeting her eyes. “You are my wife – you’re family. And there is nothing more important to Dany than family.”

Sansa scoffs. “You’re wrong.”

“Oh?”

“There will always be something more important to a Targaryen,” Sansa says simply, pulling a letter into her hands and reading her husband’s messy scrawl. “The throne.”

 

* * *

 

 

it is Jon, that tells her.

“We will leave on the sennight.”

His words drown her; stones tied to feet as she is thrown into the sea below. Her heart is as strong as a failing sail then, easily blown away – leaving her chest vacant.

He watches her with eyes of stone, and Sansa wonders what he expects from her. She wonders if he expects he tears, or mayhaps even a smile, for as she stands before him her stomach is a storm of warring feelings.

“How?” Sansa asks, the word tumbling from her mouth before she could stop herself.

Jon pours his wineskin, before he runs his hand through his hair – exasperation leaving his mouth in a sigh that billows into a cloud of condensation. Winter has truly penetrated her chambers, and not even the fire in the large hearth can maintain any semblance of warmth. Even the moon is hidden so deeply beyond the clouds that the darkness seems eternal.

Sansa thinks of Winterfell, and how despite the cold, it was always warm. _Winterfell was made for winter,_ she thinks, _just as we were._

They are two wolves, in a city made for summer, surrounded by serpents that seek to poison them.

From the day her father's head had been cut from his neck, she had been alone in this Keep. Arya had been gone from the moment their father had died, and Sansa had been left, surrounded by lions that sought to dress her in their colours and make her roar as they did. And then Joanna had been born – screaming, and squalling, and so _Stark_ it had made Sansa weep, for to be alone in King's Landing was the slowest death one could endure.

But for all that Joanna was a wolf, there is something about Jon that Sansa has not found since that day on the steps of the Great Sept of Baelor. Mayhaps it is the way he speaks, or simply the way he looks at her, that need only remind her of a home she once had and happiness she had once felt.

Sansa had imagined her future many times since her father’s death, but it had never strayed in thought. Sansa had known, from the moment Joffrey had forced her to stare at her father’s bodiless head, that she would return North, even if it was when her body was frail and her spirit broken.

When she had stood before Joffrey, so gallant and beautiful in his doublet of fine red velvet at the altar of the Sept of Baelor, she had told herself that one day, when Joffrey laid deep within the ground, her child by him would allow her to return North. _My babes will love me more that the moon loves the sky, and they shall me go, when their father rots in a grave he built, to the land of my memories._

She had imagined it all – that her babes, blond haired and green eyed, would hold such love for her that they would give her reprieve and allow her to return North. It had been a fantasy she had held onto, whenever Joffrey forced her to do her duty, she would think of it – of a time when the North would sing her name and she would return to the walls in which raised her.

But a dream of home changed when she saw Joanna for the first time.

She knew she could not wait, not when her babe, beautiful and wild and so very Stark, rest in her arms. And so her thought of home had changed, and she had come to think of her return as soon, rather than at the end of her days. _Dreams are of no worth when they are simply dreams,_ Sansa had thought.

Sansa had always dreamed dreams of southron princes and fine gowns and summer days. Sansa had seen her entire life in a dream, an apparition of a beautiful man who would declare his love to her at a tourney by which he would crown her Queen of love and beauty before he would ask her father for her hand. The dream was always the same – a dream of a elusive man with no face. Her dream, that she had clung to when she travelled south, had killed her father. _Dreams have broken me. Dreams have enslaved me. Dreams have ensavaged me._

She could not simply dream when she had a child.

Sansa had known from the moment she had seen Joanna that her babe could not grow in these walls, where venom drips from the bricks and where women were split in half for a crown. From the moment Joanna was born, Sansa was no longer waiting to die – she was waiting to live.

Now, Sansa imagines her daughter, growing amongst the walls of Winterfell and free from the Capitol’s eyes. She imagines her babe, beautiful and strong, sitting in the Lord's chair of Winterfell – Warden to a North that belongs to her.  She imagines taking her babe – both of them – to her mother’s home, where they could bathe in the flowing rivers and dance in the green fields beyond the moat. _Oh the life I can give them,_ Sansa thinks, her heart clenching as she thinks of life beyond wars and battles.

 _I am so tired of war,_ Sansa thinks, _I am so tired of waiting for peace._

When she had seen Jon in the Great Hall, she had thought him to be her father –an apparition of a man whose body she had last seen being kicked to the ground with no head. They were two ghost, unaware that they were in fact alive and it seems that has followed them. Jon has gone from brother to cousin to husband, and yet despite the disgust and guilt and anger, his eyes remind her of home and his hands carry the same warmth as Winterfell’s’ walls.

Jon has become so much more than an agreement; so much more than a ploy.

And Sansa does not know what to make of it.

 _My family are all dead,_ she thinks, _Mother, and Father, and Robb, and Arya, and Bran, and Rickon. My family are all dead. Jon is all that remains. Jon, and Joanna, and this babe._

“By dragon,” Jon says. “We shall fly above, and lead our men.”

It is a battle cry, yet so softly spoken. Sansa wonders when she shall have to grieve for him; when she will be told of his death. _For all I have loved I have grieved and for every smile there has been ten tears._

Jon’s death would be as the rest – painful, and plaguing. She imagines a letter in the scrawl of the Queens, telling her of what had become of her husband. Sansa knows what to expect, for hope can be had but rarely does it last. Hoping for something more than pain is like hoping for warmth in this treacherous winter.

Sansa’s hands find her stomach, still void of any signs of a babe. _I shall be a widow once more, and they shall dress in me in black before they sell me to my next owner._

To think of a life without Jon was crippling; a thought that sent her into a spiral of grief that she can taste. She has felt it all before, for she knows what loss means, but for all she knows of grief, Sansa knows she never wants to grieve Jon Snow. _Let him come back to me, and live to thirty, and forty, and fifty, and sixty. Let him know his babe, and know the North. Let us have a thousand years and so many children and_ **_life._ **

For Sansa Stark very much wants to live a life with Jon Snow.

Sansa wants to watch as Jon holds their babe in his arms, and sing songs of Winter. Sansa wants to take walks in the Godswood at Winterfell, and see Joanna grow amongst the snowy fields. Sansa wants to see Jon’s raven locks curl grey and lines to meet his scars. Sansa wants to sit beside him in the Grand Hall of Winterfell, and dance to the music she grew with (although she does not hold hope to get Jon to dance).

“Lord Tyrion says that what little men the Lannister’s can still command will be pledged to joining,” Jon says as he sips. “And we have men from the Vale, although negotiating with Lord Baelish was like pulling teeth.”

“Yes,” Sansa murmurs, “Lord Baelish is difficult.”

Jon meets her eye, before he sighs. “I will write, as often as I can.” 

“Will you?” Sansa asks, biting her lip.

“As often as I can,” Jon promises, before his eyes flicker to her stomach. “I … I want to be back before our babe is born, Sansa.”

“You are fighting monsters!” Sansa breathes. “It shall take a month riding to get the men there, and then a month back! And battles … they can take so long, and you do not even know the force you’re dealing with.”

Jon’s jaw locks. “I know.”

“And if …” Sansa trails off, her hands clutching at her skirts as she looks away from him. “What if you lose this war?”

Jon’s head snaps up. “We can’t.”

“Every war can be lost,” Sansa murmurs, bringing her eyes to meet his. “If … if you die, what will … what will become of-“

“You shall be safe,” Jon says, pushing back from the wall to come stand before her. “You shall always be safe, here.”

“And what if the Queen dies?” Sansa asks, her anxiousness crawling over her skin like bugs. “What if it is Aegon that survives, Jon? What shall happen to our babe?”

“Aegon would not hurt a child,” Jon assures, shaking his head.

“And neither would Robert Baratheon,” Sansa snaps, “and yet he knighted the man who split Elia Martell in half and murdered a toddler. And mayhaps even a babe with the name Aegon.”

“We can’t talk about this now,” Jon says. “We shall discuss it when I get back-“

“But what if you do not get back!?!” Sansa asks, consumed by the possibilities that war brings.

She knows what happens in War. She knows what happens to men who battle; they do as their Queen commands, and then they come back in a wooden box, if their body can even be found. Sansa knows enough of battle to know that there is no mercy to it, and the Stranger often acts as its commander.

Her worries of what it would mean if Aegon was to survive only seem to flood her mind then. For all that Aegon did not seem truly evil, or malicious, the thirst for the iron throne destroys decency and goodness, and so Sansa knows that if he was to survive and Jon was not, her safety would be gone.

Sansa thinks of a story she has heard often; the story of her grandfather, Rickard Stark, and his eldest son. Brandon Stark was meant to marry her mother, but he died. Strangled trying to free his father whilst he watched him melt in armour. Sansa had thought it terrible, when Septa Mordane had first told her of her how her Uncle and Grandfather had perished.

Watching her father die is a plague upon her mind; a memory she can never truly shake. She can still see the gold cloaks flinging her father down, whilst Ser Ilyn walked towards him and unsheathed Ice from the scabbard on his back. She had screamed, her throat raw, begging for mercy, before Ice came down and her world had turned red. Her tears joined the river of her father's blood.

 _To watch a parent die is to feel your heart cut from your chest,_ she thinks, _I cannot let my babes see me die before them._

Jon must see her agony, for is arms are warm when he pulls her to his chest, and she finds herself trembling. “I … I do not want you to die, Jon.”

Jon laughs loudly, looking down to meet her eyes. “I’m glad.”

“I do not want to be left alone at this court – I cannot be left alone here,” Sansa rambles, her fingers clutching her jerkin. “I have spent years alone here, with no true allies and now I shall have _two_ babes to protect and I do not know if I will be strong enough to battle again.” 

Jon brings his hands to her cheeks, and cups them. “You shall not be alone, Sansa. I shall return.”

“You can’t promise that,” She says.

“I will always protect you,” Jon insists.

Sansa feels her insides coiling as she spits, “No one can protect anyone. Not anymore.”

“I only shall die,” Jon murmurs, his finger brushing a curl from her face, “when I am old and grey and have our children around us. I shall die beside you, and in the North.”

“You don’t know that-“ Sansa begins, before Jon’s face twitches in pain.

“I know!” Jon snaps. “I know I don’t know, but I am trying to have hope. I am trying to not believe that I shall die beyond the Wall, for I have died there before and I cannot do it again. I don’t want to die, not now, not when I have you and Joanna and this _babe._ I can’t die, so _gods_ , Sansa, let me act as if I know my life shall not end in winters snow by the hands of an army of the dead.”

Sansa steps back, watching as a shadow falls over her husbands face before exhaustion consumes him. Jon looks much older now, the lines of his face singing of pain felt and tears wept. Sansa moves to trail the scar that has mauled the line of his eyebrow, biting into her lip as she realises that her panic has only caused Jon to feel the fear he must surely know rests within him.

“I’m sorry,” Sansa murmurs. “I shouldn’t speak of death when you are to go to war, but I fear I know death too intimately to simply ignore.”

Jon flinches, looking to the ground in pain. “I do not want to talk of death. Not now.”

Silence stretches between them, before Sansa moves forward, her fingers coming to unlace his jerkin. Jon’s eyes snap forward, watching in acute regard as her fingers carefully pulled the leather from his chest.

“What are you doing?” He asks, as her fingers began removing his tunic.

“I wish to lay with my husband,” Sansa says simply, pulling his tunic from him before she steps closer. Her fingers find his face, tracing his lips as she whispers, “I do not want to talk of death, either.”

And so they do not talk of death.

 

* * *

 

 

In the depth of the night, wrapped in the arms of the other, they whisper their wishes.

“If I am to die,” Jon says, his face inches from hers, “I wish for the babe to know I loved it. I wish for the babe to be taught of honour, and of the North. I wish for the babe to … to know kindness. To not sneer at bastards, or the small.”

Sansa nods. “Our babe shall know it all, Jon. He shall be kind, and honourable, and I shall always speak of you.”

Jon looks away, before he whispers, “If it is a boy, I wish for him to be called Eddard, Sansa.”

Sansa exhales deeply, moving closer to him. “And if it is a girl?”

“A daughter,” Jon whispers, his dark eyes shining with the warmth of the fire. “Arya.”

Sansa grins so wide it hurts, before she feels his large palm on her belly, spreading over her scars. She echoes the name like a prayer, “Arya.”

“But I wish for her to look like you,” Jon murmurs, caressing her stomach. “I wish for her to look like you, so much.”

“Why?” Sansa asks. “I want her to have stark eyes and dark hair and your large ears.”  

Jon grins, before he sobers. “I want her to be as beautiful as you are, Sansa.”

Sansa stills, her smile fading as her heart thuds against her chest. Swallowing, she meets his eyes only to find such fire burning within them – an intensity that she only seen few times prior.

_He thinks me beautiful._

“Beautiful,” Sansa murmurs.

Jon’s lips twitch, and he moves to wrap his arms around her again, for it is cold even under the large furs.

“If I die,” Jon whispers, “I shall leave instructions with Ser Jon Highsley, and you shall go to him as soon as you get the news. He shall … he shall protect you and he shall take you from here.”

Sansa cups his cheeks, before she whispers, “Thank you. Thank you.”

 

* * *

 

 

Joanna weeps as Jon leaves.

“I shall write to you,” Jon promises, smiling broadly as he wipes the tears from her cheeks.

“But I do not want you to leave,” Joanna whispers. “I do not want you to go.”

“But he must, my sweet,” Sansa murmurs, running her hands through her hair. “It is only for a little while.”

 _Lie,_ she thinks.

Joanna’s lip trembles as her cheeks become stained by the salt of her tears. “Do you have to go?”

“Yes,” Jon says, nodding as he adjusts his kneeling on the stone. They are in the Keep still, but the courtyard is in sight, where many of the soldiers wait to ride with their Prince. Jon is in armour of black scales, and red dragons, and he truly looks like the dragon Prince they call him. ”But I shall write to you and Mama, as often as I can, and tell you of all that I am doing.

_Now he’s the liar._

“I shall miss you,” Joanna weeps, her hands coming to burry themselves in Sansa’s skirts as she begins to sob.

Jon sighs, before he picks her up and begins to rub Joanna’s back. “I shall miss you too, my love.”

Joanna sighs for a long while in his arms, before Jon’s squire comes running from the courtyard. “My Prince, it is time to leave.”

Sansa feels her heart breaking into small fragments as she peels her babe from Jon’s arms, and warms her small body with her embrace, pressing kisses into her braided hair.

“Keep Mama safe,” Jon says as he lays a kiss to Joanna’s head. “And you must promise that you shall be as strong as a Stark.”

Joanna nods, wearily. “Yes.”

“What are our words?” Jon asks, his voice becoming stern.

“Winter is coming,” Joanna says, and Sansa smiles.

Jon nods. “Winter is coming, that’s right.”

Jon meets Sansa’s eyes, a burning intensity swirling in the grey orbs that Sansa knows so well. She wonders if he shall kiss her, or if he shall simply kiss her hand. A part of her wishes for him to make it quick, for she does not know how long she can retain her mask of calm as she watches him leave.

But he does not kiss her. Instead, he offers her his hand and begins to lead her to where the court stands, to say farewell to their Monarch and her two Princes.

Sansa joins the front, whispering to Joanna, “Be strong, now.”

Her babe does as she is told, surprise Sansa greatly, as her tears dry and she loosens her tight grip on Sansa’s neck, allowing her to place her on the ground.

Sansa can feel the eyes of the court on them, watching and judging, whispering and wondering, as they always had. Sansa wonders, for just a moment, of what they may say about her, before she resolves that she truly does not care. _Let them call me weak. Let them call me savage. Let them call me names, and I shall wear their heads on a chain around my neck._

Aegon brushes a small kiss on her cheek as he bids her farewell, cold lips on her cheeks that leave a wrongness floating in her gut. “Princess Sansa, I bid you farewell.”

“And I bid you good tidings in the War to come,” Sansa says, falling into a small curtsy beneath the violet eyes of the man who claims to be a ghost.

Daenerys is next, in armour of silver and black. She looks beautiful, but she always does – a petite Queen whose crown seems heavier than her entire weight. She has bells in her braids, and a dagger at her side, and Sansa wonders if this is who this Queen truly is – a dragon warrior who would prefer riding skins and armour, than gowns and crowns.

“Lady Joanna,” Daenerys says sweetly. Her smile is kind, and her eyes warm as she offers Joanna good tidings. “I am entrusting you with a great responsibility. Do you think you can do as I ask?”

Joanna nods, timidly. “Yes.”

“I need you to look after my Keep for me,” Daenerys says, her face warm. “IT is a great responsibility, do you think you can do it?”

Joanna nods, her tears seeming years away. “Of course!”

“Then I shall be in your debt, my Lady Stark,” Daenerys laughs, before she moves onto where Sansa stands. “Neice.”

“My Queen,” Sansa says, looking to where Joanna is now bouncing with excitement at being given such a task from the Queen. Sansa leans forward, whispering, “I thank you for distracting her, your grace.”

“I would weep too, if my father was leaving,” Daenerys says simply, a sad smile on her lips.

 _Father,_ Sansa thinks, before she looks to where Jon is readying his horse. It had been decided the dragons would be let go from the pits five days ago, before they would be ridden once outside the city gates.

“I shall make sure he writes,” Daenerys says with a nod, before she glances to Sansa’s belly. “I will pray, every night, for your safety and for the babes.”

Sansa nods, feeling anxious of talk of the babe around Joanna, for whom she hadn’t told yet. _She is young, and babes are easily lost._

“Thank you, your grace.”

Daenerys nods, before she meets Sansa’s eyes. “And I shall keep him safe, my lady.”

Sansa’s breath hitches, for there is sincerity in Daenerys Targaryen’s eyes and for the first time since Sansa had met the woman, she finds herself trusting her.

“Thank you,” Sansa answers, honestly. “And I shall pray for your safety, and for your success.”

Daenerys smiles, before she walks to where her silver horse stands.

Jon stands before her, and it feels like the world is on fire.

“May I have your favour, my lady?” Jon murmurs, his voice so low that she can barely hear it.

With racing heart, and trembling hands, Sansa pulls the favour from her sleeve and ties it on the sword that Jon carries. Meeting his grey eyes, she finds so much more than friendship – frighteningly.

_Let him reach thirty, and forty, and fifty, and sixty. Let him know my babe, and let us have many more. Let us have time. Let him live. Let him live._

Her prayers are chants that she sings, and she finds herself panicking as Jon looks to the favour, before his feet begin to move in the direction of the horse. _No_! He could not leave. Not like this.

Sansa’s feet move without consent, and her hands reach her husband’s face without much regard. The world is on fire, and they are kissing, while the court watches on. She knows she should care, or have done this earlier, but the pain of his absence is already felt in her veins and she can feel her grief like a sore wound that is flaring on her heart.

Jon pulls her to him, surprised, and his chest plate digs into her gown as she cups his cheeks.

_Let him reach thirty, and forty, and fifty, and sixty. Let us know many more kisses, and let us know each other without guilt or pervasion. Let us be happy._

Sansa is breathless when they separate, before she whispers, “Come back to me?”

Jon’s eyes are small moons in his skull as he says, “Always.”

She watches him ride away, and she feels like dying.

 _Let him reach thirty, and forty, and fifty, and sixty. Let him live. Let him live._ **_Let him live._ **


End file.
